


Gravity of Empire

by NonBinaryStars



Series: The Compass [1]
Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enthusiastic Consent, Frenemies to friends to lovers, Laurence has a bit of a Competence Kink, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn, Tharkay has trust issues and rightfully so, Tharkay is lowkey a radical pleasure activist, also Laurence is into Butt Stuff, but they get there, content warning: structural and interpersonal racism, heads up there's also deep contemplation + examination of intersectional trauma, is Tharkay dissociating or meditating...? you decide!, it's not angst it's two adults doing their actual best to cope, it’s Not Gay™ if you’re On a Ship, oh yeah and Laurence definitely has a Service Kink but c'mon we BEEN knowing about that one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 37,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25099333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NonBinaryStars/pseuds/NonBinaryStars
Summary: “The captain was clearly one of those Englishmen who, having acquired a taste for the exotic during his travels and being a gentleman of means, wielded his power over the natives to affect the trappings of a status he had not earned......For his own part, Tharkay had long since ceased to draw from the poisoned well the British called love.”Tharkay and Laurence’s story from Tharkay’s perspective, from Black Powder War through Tongue of Serpents.
Relationships: Temeraire & Tenzing Tharkay, William Laurence & Temeraire, William Laurence & Tenzing Tharkay, William Laurence/Tenzing Tharkay
Series: The Compass [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817851
Comments: 398
Kudos: 144





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> All characters belong to Naomi Novik; I am but a humble fan who saw so much of themself in Tharkay that I had to write him. 
> 
> All dialogue marked with an asterisk* is quoted directly from canon. 
> 
> For context, the song I had on repeat while editing this chapter was Q.U.E.E.N. by Janelle Monáe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These characters are not my creations -- Naomi Novik gave me the world's most excellent sandbox to play in, and in Tharkay a character whose decisions and actions and lived experience and interior life feel just like mine. 
> 
> A version of the Author’s Note at the end of this chapter originally appeared at the end of the Dover chapter, for anyone who is experiencing deja vu. 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this was Q.U.E.E.N. by Janelle Monáe. 
> 
> All dialogue marked with an asterisk* is taken directly from canon.

#  **Prologue ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay makes an entrance**

*******

To his credit, Tenzing Tharkay did at least  _ try _ the easy way first, even if it had been only a token attempt.

He had planned to release the eagle when he arrived to the port; now he was grateful that he hadn’t yet done it, for a raptor was a stunning accessory to his entrance into Staunton’s monstrosity of a house in the English Quarter. Indeed, one shriek from her and the servants had scattered out of his way much like rabbits or mice upon hearing the same, and his path to the dining-room was clear. 

The heavy wooden doors were satisfyingly loud as he threw them open and walked into the room to perfect silence from the dinner guests. He threw his glance around the table, taking in the oh-so-delicious stares of shock, bewilderment, and no little degree of reluctant intimidation. 

The room’s decor was an affront to the senses, and the guests’ attire even more so; no few of them were clearly about to expire in the heat, and the rest looked to be three sheets to the wind. Tharkay had seen all he needed. Captain Laurence was surely the one in the green silk  _ chaofu  _ coat and  _ piling  _ collar, embroidered all over in gold with the Imperial dragon insignia. Tharkay supposed he was nominally entitled to it, having been officially adopted into the Imperial family by way of his dragon, but his choice left a sour taste in the mouth. 

The captain was clearly one of those Englishmen who, having acquired a taste for the exotic during his travels and being a gentleman of means, wielded his power over the natives to affect the trappings of a status he had not earned. Had he so little respect for the charge entrusted to him, his responsibility for the Celestial dragon Temeraire, that he would take advantage of that bond for selfish--no, for  _ sartorial  _ ends? Was Tharkay truly to be saddled with this prig all the way across Asia? And still more pressing: did Captain Laurence honestly think he looked  _ good _ in that coat?

When he had surveyed the room, Tharkay allowed his gaze to fall nowhere in particular; and after an appropriately long moment of stunned silence, he let fly his second weapon, and spoke: “I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for interrupting your dinner; my errand cannot wait. Is Captain William Laurence here?”*

After a number of years he had finally chosen laughter as his response to the perpetual confusion which followed when any Englishman heard his natural tone and inflection. Offense was exhausting; apology was not acceptable: mockery was the only route which allowed Tharkay to retain his sanity. 

Captain Laurence was rising, and taking the letter from him. “I thank you, sir.”* 

A first, then: a gentleman who, having heard Tharkay speak as one of them, responded in like kind. Tharkay nodded to him. “I am glad to have been of service.”*

*** 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tharkay: THIS fucking guy 
> 
> ***
> 
> Ok, so.
> 
> Little about me: I’m a queer mixed Black enby who began writing this story because Tenzing Tharkay is ME. Like Tharkay, I benefit from the privileges of class, education, and being a nominal citizen of the colonial settler state I was born into. And like Tharkay, I am part of a persecuted minority in that country, and my personhood is constantly in question, and (I cannot stress this enough) that knowledge permeates my every interaction, all of the time, forever and always. Along the axes of race, gender, and sexual orientation, I may as well not exist in the dominant cultural narrative.
> 
> A lot of the racial dynamics in this story spring from my family’s and my experiences with the white people in our lives, especially these last few months. Specifically, those in our networks who post about “omgggg supportttttttt teh blackx” but literally have not checked in on us once -- or if they do, it’s because they want to process THEIR emotions about racial injustice -___-. We’re not people to them: we’re either caricatures of suffering or we’re “not like, REALLY Black, you know?” (gah, the number of times i’ve heard that one…)
> 
> That narrative of ‘not REALLY _____’ is especially insidious when it comes to the experiences of mixed people. The myth of the ‘tragic mulatto’ is just that -- a myth spread by the colonial settler state. The ‘one drop’ rule, blood quanta -- all of it is a mask to cover up the ugly truth, which is that there have been BIPOC children fathered by white men for generations: it is an intentional tool of cultural genocide. We are not separate from the experience of colonized and oppressed peoples, we are an intrinsic part of it. Tharkay understands that; he lives it, as I do.
> 
> But, as Tharkay puts it, the archaic epistemic constructs to which those in power cling have no room for us. So what does that mean for the privileges Tharkay and I enjoy from class, education, and citizenship? (#intersectionality #kimcrenshaw) What responsibilities do I have, knowing the privileges I hold? How do I balance that against my personal safety in the face of structural factors beyond my control? How do I navigate these fucked-up systems which both benefit and oppress me? And what does that mean for my actions within my personal relationships, especially with the white people in my life? These are the questions I’m wrestling with right now, and these are the questions that drive my Tharkay’s interior life: his conversations with himself, and every choice he makes.
> 
> That is The Work, right there, and it’s really, really hard. I love Tharkay and Laurence’s story because they truly figure out how do that Work together, over the course of years. (AND THEY FALL IN LOVE AND HAVE AMAZING SEX, which, I mean, what else do we write these for, honestly.) I started this fic to create a space for myself to process all of these questions and emotions, and I’m posting it because this is The Work we all have to do.
> 
> Fiction is where we get to imagine what this kind of Work could look like. This is the space for us to figure it out together: with characters we love, and a story we already know has a happy ending (and also and especially some really excellent sex). As the great Chicago thinker and philosopher Noname put it: my pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism. 
> 
> Oh yeah, and Black Lives Matter.
> 
> See you next chapter.
> 
> All my gratitude,  
> nb***


	2. Macao

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *this chapter has been updated with a new Author's Note at the end!* 
> 
> Any dialogue marked with an asterisk* is quoted directly from canon. 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this chapter was Holy (Reprise) by Jamila Woods.

#  **Macao ;**

**or,** ****

**Tharkay feeds an eagle**

*******

Much to his dismay, Tharkay was now forced to revise his impression of Captain Laurence. He was perhaps a little standoffish; a country gentleman through and through, stiff and uncomfortable in manner and tone, but for that even Tharkay could not blame him: he still looked utterly ridiculous in that coat -- and he was at the very least sensible to it, even self-effacing about the accident of its necessity. However, when confronted with the tableau Tharkay had arranged -- himself seated on the ground in the courtyard, calm and rooted, feeding the eagle on handfuls of raw meat -- Captain Laurence had made a show of descending to his level with not an ounce of hesitation. Tharkay raised an eyebrow: his officer, Lieutenant Granby, had at least eyed the floor before acquiescing. 

“So you see, with the repairs which are necessary to the ship…” Captain Laurence was saying, and Tharkay turned his attention to the eagle while the captain spoke, knowing that it would be some little while before he reached his point. 

As he pretended to listen, Tharkay allowed the eagle to fix the Englishmen with one eye and mantle its enormous wings at them a little; though he did not think they would be much affected by it, being used to dragons. At least  _ one _ of them might look at the aviators with a predatory stare, he thought ruefully; as much as he wanted to, he could not provoke the colonizers unduly. He had his own orders, of course, but it was better to let them think that it had been their idea to contract his services for the return to Istanbul.

“I should rather take the boat myself, if it were possible,” said Lieutenant Granby, and Tharkay turned back to them in time to see Captain Laurence wince. “But it seems to me that we cannot, so we must see about getting there over land.”

“Yes, quite,” said Captain Laurence. “But sir, we have not the slightest -- that is to say, Mr. Tharkay, we would be very grateful if you should -- any insight you have gained from experience, of course --” and flailed a little more, not seeming to know quite how to address him. 

Tharkay had for years now intentionally scorned any concession to British comfort in his action or appearance. In the past he had tried to shape himself to fit their mold -- only to find that there had never been any chance of winning their respect no matter how he presented. Painful though it had been, the realization was also rather freeing: these days, he crafted his appearance to suit only himself. He kept his hair long enough to form a proper Manchurian queue or read feminine should the need arise, and he had allowed his skin to darken to its natural warm brown rather than the sickly jaundiced gold he had pursued in his youth, back when he’d avoided the sun in hopes that marginally paler skin might protect him. 

Englishmen tended, when faced with the conundrum of his person, to revert to the formal, dismissive manner with which they overspoke their servants or horses -- as if he only understood those few commands which they directed his way and was insensible to the rest of the conversation they carried on around him, often with himself as the subject. Tharkay had long stopped being offended by this; there was no point to it, and anyway that tendency on their part generally allowed him to disengage and listen with half an ear while his mind went elsewhere. 

Captain Laurence, however, had deigned to address him as a gentleman last night; this morning, he was going so far as to seek Tharkay’s counsel, pulling out the maps given them by Staunton and pointing out the few shoddily marked route suggestions, and Tharkay was now forced to actually pay attention to the conversation. 

He glanced over the maps Captain Laurence presented and allowed a note of disdain to creep into his voice. “You may keep or discard those as you like; as for me, I have known too many fools in command to decide my fate wholly on the strength of another man’s word.” He watched closely: their reactions to that barb would be telling; and continued, “Give me a compass and stars, and I shall chart my own course: I have not steered myself wrong yet.”

And so saying, Tharkay opened the book of his own trip logs, with his notes and cartographic sketches, and the oilcloth-bound portfolio of fair copies drawn in his own hand. 

“Oh, these are  _ exquisite _ ,” said Captain Laurence, falling to the portfolio with the ecstasy of a pilgrim before a relic, and Tharkay raised an eyebrow: the captain had complimented his maps with no trace of the surprise which usually accompanied such recognition. “The method, and the notation -- it’s not quite the Dutch tradition but not quite the Chinese either, and you’ve marked -- oh, that’s very clever -- Granby, come and see, how he has integrated the topography with the -- but then, how did you solve the problem of scale, I wonder,” he said, interrupting himself. 

Granby rolled his eyes, clearly used to forbearing this penchant of his captain’s, and went to look. Tharkay did not move, and did not offer explanation. 

It spoke somewhat well of Captain Laurence that he did not treat Tharkay as entirely beneath his notice. Indeed, it would seem to likewise speak well of him that the dragon Temeraire had refused to give him up, but a duckling would imprint on a stoat given no other option, and Tharkay had no few worries about the fate of a Celestial dragon of the Chinese Imperial court raised by a British serving-officer. 

He might almost compare Temeraire’s situation to his own, though Tharkay supposed it rather helped one’s cause to weigh twenty tons and have the divine wind. Still, he was sure that Captain Laurence would do all he could to convince Temeraire of his own deficiencies, the better to keep him bound to his will -- that was the way of all British aviators, who called their dragons beasts and kept them in pits, fed on raw cattle. The fact that Captain Laurence would, in all likelihood, perpetuate this harm upon Temeraire unknowingly did not absolve him of it. In a position of such power, ignorance was negligence. 

For his own part, Tharkay had long since ceased to draw from the poisoned well the British called love; instead he had distanced himself and made a study of it. In order to maintain the fiction of their own supremacy, they must needs fabricate rationalizations for the inferiority of any thing foreign or unknown to them; indeed they were weaned on such fantasies and must therefore even believe them at times. The invariable result was the deep psychic and spiritual wounds they inflicted on those children they sired on natives -- whom they professed to love even as they taught those same children to demean their mothers and themselves, all the while insisting with a smile that they were doing no such thing. 

“So you see, Mr. Tharkay,” said Captain Laurence, and finally he was reaching his point, “if you would consent to serve as guide to our party for the overland crossing, we should be very grateful indeed, for with the benefit of your long experience I am sure we are much more likely to reach Istanbul safely and with all possible expediency.” 

For the dragon’s sake, Tharkay hoped that Captain Laurence could be different, that Tharkay would be proven wrong, this one time. There was no reason to believe he might, no reason at all -- except that throughout their interview, Captain Laurence had treated Tharkay much like a person rather than an object: it was infuriating. 

Infuriating because he knew it would not last -- they never did, these initial displays of respect; they would extract what they wanted from him and discard him without a second thought. It was tiring, this game of unacknowledged differences in standard, discrepancies in his treatment: given their way, the British would have him second-guessing himself and his abilities all his life long. And the ones who, like Captain Laurence, seemed upon their initial meeting to be somehow different -- ? No, they were the worst: the ones who tried to make him  _ hope. _

“I had not thought of returning to Istanbul. I have no real business there,”* said Tharkay, wanting to make the Englishmen work a little harder to keep up their false niceties. 

“But have you any elsewhere? We will have a devil of a time getting there without you, and you should be doing your country a service,”* said Lieutenant Granby, and Tharkay only stared at him, and wondered at his gall: to his knowledge, he was asking Tharkay to undertake all of the peril and expense of an overland crossing for the love of a country which had clearly already rejected him. 

“And you will be handsomely paid for your trouble,”* added Captain Laurence. Well, and the aviators need not know that he would be handsomely paid from both them  _ and  _ their Government. 

  
“Ah, well, in that case,”* said Tharkay, staring at Captain Laurence and offering nothing further. Better to make his digs now, and in so doing crack their veneers of politesse, that the Englishmen must perforce reveal their true natures  _ before  _ he yoked his course to theirs. He hoped it would happen before they reached Istanbul.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tharkay: oh no  
> Tharkay: it’s even worse than I imagined  
> Tharkay: he’s *THIS* fucking guy 
> 
> Tharkay: eh idk if i really wanna go to Istanbul tbh  
> Granby: lol what could you possibly have going on that is more important than serving the Empire 
> 
> #also colorism is a whole fucking thing #which is why Tharkay is intentionally dark-skinned #like he keeps himself dark for Reasons and also I did that on purpose, so 
> 
> *** 
> 
> Ok so a comment left by T-Rex on the Allegiance teaser made me realize that I need to deconstruct this scene a little more. I kept it *almost exactly* canon -- my only rewrite is embellishing on Granby slightly to get at a very specific dynamic that has to do with Laurence’s current status as Insufferable White Moderate™. If you’ve never been Tharkay in a scene like this, you may not necessarily clock what’s going on, so… 
> 
> Here’s what we see happening in canon when we read this scene according to Laurence’s perspective (my only changes are Granby, in parentheses): 
> 
> Tharkay: *stares at Laurence and Granby in “insolent challenge”*  
> Laurence: does this guy really expect me to sit on the floor with him???  
> Laurence: Ok, FINE  
> Laurence: *meets challenge without flinching*  
> (Granby: uh the ground is kinda gross bro??? like there’s all this raw meat here?? but ok w/e) 
> 
> Based on MY OWN LIVED EXPERIENCE, here’s what’s happening in that canon scene from Tharkay’s perspective -- again, my only rewrite is Granby: 
> 
> Tharkay: *looks at Laurence and Granby with his regular resting face*  
> Tharkay: (which he knows that colonizers consistently read as “uppity”)  
> Tharkay: (because when people are used to placing themselves above you, they see “i’m treating you as my equal” as “i’m getting above my station” or “i’m being rude”)  
> Tharkay: *looking at Laurence and Granby with his regular resting face*  
> Laurence: ooooh check out how equal i think we are, i’m stooping down to your level, see, i’m One of the Good Ones, i’m totally gonna sit on this floor to prove it, look at meeeeeeeee  
> (Granby: uh the ground is kinda gross bro??? like there’s all this raw meat here?? but ok w/e)  
> Tharkay: *noted on both counts* 
> 
> Essentially, Laurence is doing the same thing here that Ferris’s mom did when they stopped by their house that one time and she was all gross and fake and over-praising -- he’s virtue signaling like nobody’s business -- that’s what happens when Colonizers profess to be One of the Good Ones without actually doing the uncomfortable self-reflection and hard work to empathize with marginalized experiences: complete erasure. 
> 
> Because here’s the thing -- BOTH experiences of their interaction are valid. But Tharkay is the only one who KNOWS that there are two experiences -- Laurence doesn’t even THINK to consider the interaction from Tharkay’s perspective and THAT’S the Colonizer Mindset™ at work: THAT’S the erasure. 
> 
> If you’re part of a marginalized population, you are ALWAYS aware of how the dominant culture perceives you, for your own safety ( ← that’s that *DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS* that Great-Granddad Webby DuBois was talking about). It’s fucking exhausting -- think of how women are constantly forced to self-monitor what they wear/do/say so that men don’t “get the wrong idea” and you’ll see what I mean. When marginalized people choose to be unapologetically themselves, to not succumb to the dominant cultural narrative of who they are, it’s a RADICAL ACT OF RESISTANCE -- and THAT’S what Tharkay is doing here. 
> 
> Side note, I also like having Granby like this because he’s a constant, a known quantity who stays solidly *pretty fly for a white guy* for most of the series -- he passes the “test” because he just...treats Tharkay like a person? like the floor is legitimately gross and he doesn’t pretend otherwise? and this way I can position Laurence relative to Granby to reflect Laurence’s journey. Even in canon we see Laurence starting to do a very tiny bit of The Work in this scene, but he still has loooong way to go.
> 
> Thoughts? Did the further breakdown help you understand the dynamics here a little more? Does it reflect any part of your own experience? If so please let me know in the comments, even if it’s just “uhhhhhh wtf this is making me Think some Thoughts” because that’s honestly the only way I have of knowing whether anyone is listening, and believe it or not I actually have a lot of anxiety about sharing like this, so. 
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***


	3. The Taklamakan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *update* this chapter now has an Author's Note at the end! 
> 
> All dialogue marked with an asterisk* is taken directly from canon. 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this chapter was "What Is This Feeling?" from Wicked - a little on the nose? You betcha.

#  **The Taklamakan ;**

**or,** ****

**Tharkay pities the fool**

*******

“Tharkay,” said Temeraire, and Tharkay smiled, preparing for another of Temeraire’s wonderful questions. 

They were flying above the desert, their backs to the sunrise, and blue shadows stretched long before them. Each day as the rest of the aviators struck the camp, Tharkay would go aloft with Temeraire and his captain to scout ahead and survey their route. More often than not these were flights taken in silence, broken only by Temeraire’s occasional inquiry. Tharkay loved the quiet, but he also loved Temeraire’s questions, not least because they were nearly always somehow offensive to Captain Laurence’s delicate sensibilities. 

“Hush, my dear,” said Captain Laurence now to Temeraire, “and let Mr. Tharkay work; he is plotting our day’s course,” and Tharkay, his back to Captain Laurence, rolled his eyes. 

Intelligent, curious, much more sharply observant than those around him gave him credit for -- Tharkay couldn’t deny that he felt some kinship with Temeraire. In fact, he had found that he quite liked the dragon and would often seek him out just for the pleasure of conversation: Temeraire was the only one of their party who addressed him with no pretense.

The only fly in the ointment was when Captain Laurence would thrust himself into their discourse; or worse, just sit there and listen, watching Tharkay with an air of consideration as if unable to work out how to take his measure. 

“It is no burden, Temeraire,” said Tharkay, “Ask your questions -- I am quite capable of carrying on a conversation while scouting; and I hope I may satisfy your curiosity with what meager knowledge I possess.” 

“Who left those ruins behind?” said Temeraire immediately, indicating the remains of what may have once been the foundation of a building. “What sort of people would live in this place?”

“It was more prosperous in years past,” said Tharkay, “When the overland route was the more profitable, and the Silk Road supported more settlements here; but now that the trade winds have shifted in favor of the British and their sea routes, empires lay claim to this land as no more than an empty space to play out their petty squabbles.” 

“I would not term the lifeblood of Britain a ‘squabble,’” interjected Captain Laurence, “and I wonder that you should call it so, when the dominion we hold over the global trade allows you your profession, sir; and you make your living on its sufferance.” 

“You are correct, of course,” said Tharkay, not looking up from his sketching. “I hope you will forgive me if I have unwittingly erred; with my limited perspective I am not able, as you are, to grasp the full picture of our country’s political and economic interests; and the magnitude of the implications thereof.” 

Captain Laurence and Temeraire’s relationship seemed to be that of stripling son and protective father; or perhaps an aging ruler and the crown prince, though which of the two inhabited which role seemed with shift with easy fluidity. It was so wholly different from Tharkay’s experience of British aviators that Tharkay found himself with a sort of grudging respect for Captain Laurence, who had clearly internalized at least a few of the tenets with which the Chinese approached human-draconic relations. 

However even as he recognized the clear love between Temeraire and his captain, the strength of that bond gave Tharkay no little anxiety. The love was real, true; but still Tharkay could hold no grace in his heart for fathers who, for all of the love they bore their foreign sons, would always love their Empire more. 

“What do you mark on your maps?” said Temeraire, and Tharkay came back from the horizon. “Do you mark the ruins?” 

“I mark any observation I make, particularly those I think we might find helpful: any landmarks, yes; also the conditions; the date and temperature; the winds and their direction; our heading, course, and relative position; and then when we return to camp I shall check my observations against our previous day’s survey and my fair copy maps.”

“Ah,” said Temeraire, “That is usually Laurence’s role -- he is ever so particular about it; he says we must be exact and precise with our navigation, for even a miscalculation of a few degrees should result in us ending many miles off course.”

“He is correct,” said Tharkay, conscious that Captain Laurence was still listening closely. “I have been traveling these roads a long while; and I am as you see before you -- a wanderer perhaps, but I have not yet lost myself, and that is because I am nothing if not thorough; I follow my own course. I am, however,” he continued, “used to doing this work without the benefit of a dragonback view; I must thank you, Temeraire, for this is a much pleasanter way to survey terrain than that to which I am accustomed.”

“I like flying with you,” said Temeraire, and Tharkay was astonished at how the praise warmed him. 

“I am honored by it; I enjoy flying with you too, Temeraire,” said Tharkay, and did not look at Captain Laurence. In truth, Tharkay both despised and did not so much mind the captain’s presence on those morning flights, for Captain Laurence was a truly disrespectful species of beautiful. 

He had Galahad’s pure features, all shining blue eyes and sun-bleached wheat-gold hair, a true officer and gentleman: carrying himself with noble bearing and upright posture, the kind of man one imagined concealing violent passion beneath the schoolboy charm; he might have been the subject of one of Lord Byron’s lately published Harrow poems. 

His was a straightforward beauty, uninteresting and direct: plain good looks, the rose of the English aristocracy, so unselfconsciously lovely that Tharkay found himself actually growing to resent him.

“Might we compare notes, Mr. Tharkay?” said the captain. “I think we should both find it useful, if Temeraire is any judge.” 

Temeraire had spoken highly enough of his captain’s abilities that Tharkay judged it worth handing over his own notebook to have a look at Captain Laurence’s; so he lay his journal in front of them, and Captain Laurence placed his beside it, the better to look together. He was pleasantly surprised to find that Captain Laurence’s sketches were almost of like quality to his, though with an eye clearly trained by the Royal Navy: he measured speed in knots, which Tharkay found strangely endearing: a bit of personality. 

He had a habit of annotating his calculations; Tharkay could see how that would be useful when making fair copies. The captain’s observations were divergent to his in approach and yet still astute in synthesis; in total, Tharkay was impressed despite himself, and turned to Captain Laurence to see what he had made of the comparison. 

The good captain was looking blankly at the journals before them. “You have made your notations in...Chinese, and...Persian? and English...and this other...four separate scripts,” he said in a faint voice. 

“Yes,” said Tharkay. 

“That...but why...so then...you are able to decipher these terms in written communication from any of the tribes or nations we might encounter on our route,” said Captain Laurence, catching on. 

“Yes,” said Tharkay. 

“That,” said Captain Laurence, “is  _ brilliant, _ utterly brilliant -- how ingenious -- I wonder that I had not thought of it, before -- may I borrow this, to make copies? 

Tharkay did not say:  _ you are entitled to nothing of mine.  _ He said, “You will remember the names better if you learn them yourself; I am sure Temeraire would be delighted to teach you the Chinese terms,” and took his journal back. 

“Oh, yes!” said Temeraire. “Laurence, you  _ do  _ need ever so much help with your pronunciation, and we might practice together as we fly.” 

Of course Temeraire was eager to help: every being in his service was desperate to please Captain Laurence, not out of fear, but out of loyalty and camaraderie, and  _ love _ \-- indeed, more than half of his corps was more than half in love with their captain; and Tharkay could not find it in himself to fault them for it, not when he so clearly cared for them, and put their needs ahead of his own. 

Yes, Captain Laurence was a very able commander, and although Tharkay knew he had invited it -- it still hurt, just a little, when Laurence looked at him with that air of consideration. He knew what that look meant -- puzzlement, which would soon turn to suspicion, and then distrust, and then isolation, rejection, and abandonment: the British did not trust that which they could not understand, and the archaic epistemic constructs to which they clung held no room for him. 

So when at night the aviators set up their tents and unrolled their bedrolls in draconic piles, Tharkay pitched his tent a little ways away and did not join their fires. He was not one of them, and he would always be on the outside of their circles, and he would not, would  _ not _ , be bitter.

It upset his equilibrium in a way he had not known since he had quit Britain: he was at once angry at the aviators for their fellowship and ashamed himself for wanting it, for the plaintive self-pity in his heart. It put him right back in the Court of Sessions, or at school, or any number of places from which he had been summarily excluded on the basis of features which British society had constantly tried to convince him were personal flaws. 

Yes, the envy and the bitterness were familiar to him; the self-pity and the shame were old friends. They were all of them festering infections from the same wound: the deep, old trauma at the center of his heart, which he had worked so hard to heal from, and of which the aviators were a constant reminder. 

  
  


***

  
  


When the sandstorm struck, Tharkay had begun to tell stories to the crew and Temeraire, to redirect their anxiety and pass the time. As the storm howled and raged, he spoke of the people of the Taklamakan, the Aynu, who gave names to the winds and their songs in the language of the desert. “Some call the karaburan the work of evil spirits,” he said in the darkness of their hurried shelter. “You can hear their voices, if you listen.”* 

“I cannot understand them, what language is that?”* said Temeraire. 

“No tongue of men or dragons,” said Tharkay. “Those who listen too long grow confused and lose their way: they are never found again, except as bones scoured clean to warn other travelers away.”* 

As usual, Captain Laurence cut in and spoiled the fun, and Tharkay flew up and away to listen to the winds. 

Later in the storm though, Temeraire turned to Tharkay, clearly having thought on their earlier conversation. “Have you heard of dragons having their own languages? I have always thought we learned them from men only.”* 

Tharkay, recalled back to himself by Temeraire’s question, did not say:  _ that is because they would have you believe that you are a dumb beast, elevated only by their civilizing influence.  _ He said, “The Durzagh tongue is a language of dragons. There are sounds in it men cannot make: your voices more easily mimic ours than the reverse.”* 

“Oh! Will you teach me?”* There was no doubt that Temeraire would easily learn Durzagh if he applied himself, but Tharkay was again conscious of Captain Laurence listening in. The occasional conversation was all very well, but lessons in Durzagh skirted a little too close to the perception of interference between Temeraire and his captain, and even if Tharkay did not particularly respect the way the British kept their dragons, still he would not violate this precept, for his own safety’s sake. 

“It is of little use,” he said to Temeraire. “It is only spoken in the mountains: in the Pamirs, and the Karakoram.”* 

“I do not mind that. It will be so very useful when we are back in England. Laurence, the Government cannot say we are just animals if we have invented our own language.”* 

“No one with any sense would say it regardless--”* blundered Captain Laurence.

At that, Tharkay couldn’t help but snort. “On the contrary, they are more likely to think you an animal for speaking a tongue other than English; or at least a creature unworthy of notice: you would do better to cultivate an elevated tone _ , _ ”* he said, drawing out his vowels to exaggerate the inflection. 

Temeraire attempted an imitation:  _ “Cuuuuultivate an eeeeelevated tooone,”*  _ he said, and Tharkay nearly fell over. 

“Close,” he said to Temeraire, but more like this: “CUUUUuuuuLtivate an EEEEEEEeeeeeelevated TOOOooooNE.”

“ _ CUUUUUULTivaaaate an EEEEEEeeeeLEEEEEEEVAAAAAAted TOooooOOONNNNNNNE,”  _ said Temeraire, and Tharkay repeated the phrase, and they tripped over one another repeating it over to greater and greater exaggeration, until finally Tharkay had to dissolve into laughter at hearing a dragon drawl like a dandy at top volume. 

“That is a very strange way of speaking,” said Temeraire. “It seems very peculiar to me that it should make any difference how one says the words, and it must be a great deal of trouble to learn how to say them all over again. Can one hire a translator to say things properly?”* 

“Yes; they are called lawyers,”* Tharkay said to Temeraire before he could catch himself, and grinned. 

Captain Laurence bulled his way in, stiff and utterly correct. “I would certainly not recommend you to imitate this particular style,” he said. “At best you might only impress some fellow on Bond Street, if he did not run away to begin with.”* 

“Very true; you had much better take Captain Laurence as your model. Just how a gentleman ought to speak; I am sure any official would agree,”* Tharkay said blandly, knowing that the captain would not be able to find fault with his words or tone: he had long since perfected this particular brand of mockery. 

Tharkay briefly imagined attempting to explain the incomprehensibly opaque tautology of the British nobility to Temeraire.  _ Any time your Laurence speaks, he speaks just as a gentleman ought, and that is because he is unquestionably a gentleman; he could never be otherwise no matter his words or deeds: but as for those whom birth or circumstance has consigned to a lower standing, we must prove our worth thrice and four times over where your captain’s bare word suffices.  _

“I see you have made a study of the subject, Mr. Tharkay,”* and oh, he was truly piqued now, if Captain Laurence was addressing him with those formal manners and cut-glass consonants. 

Perhaps it might do to de-escalate a little, Tharkay thought, and said, “Necessity was a thorough teacher, if a hard one. I found men eager enough to deny me my rights, without providing them so convenient an excuse to dismiss me.”* That might garner him a little sympathy, false in spirit but enough to blunt the captain’s anger. To Temeraire, he said, “You may find it slow going if you mean to assert your own: men with powers and privileges rarely like to share them.”* 

“I am sure I do not see why they should not wish to be just,”* said Temeraire, clearly trying to strike a balance. 

Tharkay did not say:  _ oh no, Temeraire, of course you don’t. _ He said, “Justice is expensive. That is why there is so little of it, and that reserved for those few with enough money and influence to afford it.”* 

And here came Captain Laurence. “In some corners of the world, perhaps, but thank God, we have a rule of law in Britain, and those checks upon the power of men which prevent any from becoming tyrannical.”*

Tharkay did not say:  _ you feel that way because you have always had enough money and influence to afford justice, Captain.  _ He had learned by now the futility of attempting to point out the Empire’s hypocrisy to those who benefited from it and were thus prone to take a position of wilful ignorance when it came to the harms it inflicted upon others. Per his usual tactic, Tharkay instead diverted, and amused himself by provoking Captain Laurence further. 

“Or which spread the tyranny over more hands, piecemeal,”* he said, and proceeded to needle the good captain, comparing the Chinese and even French systems of government favorably to Parliament, making outlandish claims that he knew the poor man could not help but argue seriously. 

He pitied Captain Laurence a little, for it sounded like he truly believed the pap he was regurgitating. _Temeraire, oh Temeraire,_ _you deserve better: you deserve a captain who can think for himself._ And yet still he found it highly entertaining to rile up said captain, egging him on with only a raised eyebrow and a word. 

The conversation proceeded along predictable lines; Captain Laurence did not take long to resort to the example of Admiral Nelson, though Tharkay supposed that was his prerogative, being lately of the Navy. He raised an eyebrow once again. 

“So shining an example must vanquish any argument, and indeed I should be ashamed to be the cause of any disillusionment.”* He did not say:  _ he openly dishonors his wife and slanders her character, he lends his influence to support trafficking in human bondage; but these are not counted in the Empire’s tally of his sins, for any injury done is only to women and natives and blacks.  _

Yes, it was amusing to goad Captain Laurence, but it was also frustrating to have not yet cracked that facade of gentility. What would he have done, Tharkay wondered, had Tharkay spoken those words aloud? Would he finally drop the pretense and decide that it was high time Tharkay learned his place? Had he found Captain Laurence’s breaking point? With half a smile, Tharkay opened his mouth to find out.

“We have a little break in the storm, I think; I will go and look in on the camels.”*

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tharkay: *answers Temeraire’s question with the mildest possible spice*  
> Laurence: you’ll take what the Empire gives you and be grateful for it
> 
> Laurence: omg ur homework is so pretty can I copy  
> Tharkay: FUCK no 
> 
> #of course dear sweet darling Laurence comments his code <3 <3 <3 <3 #also Laurence does that microaggression TWICE in this chapter #YIKES 
> 
> *** 
> 
> I was trying to think of what I wanted to write about for this Author’s Note -- there’s so much here, like Tharkay’s method of throwing shade by agreeing with whatever Laurence says in a way that somehow FEELS LIKE AN INSULT (which is 100% my entire defense mechanism, like, when I tell you that Tenzing Tharkay is me… damn. Tenzing Tharkay is ME). 
> 
> Anyway, I settled on writing about a specific dynamic that is pretty subtle in this chapter, but that I wanted to make sure to highlight because it’s a) canon and b) important. So… 
> 
> Why does Tharkay hold himself apart? 
> 
> Why doesn’t he join the aviators’ campfires? 
> 
> … Why do all the Black kids sit together in the cafeteria? 
> 
> Have you seen the movie Mean Girls? (If not, you should see Mean Girls: it’s a classic.) I was in high school when that movie came out, and I remember one scene very clearly -- it’s a pretty common trope in teen movies -- the explanation of the school’s ecosystem, via the map of who sits at which lunch table. 
> 
> At one point, Lindsay Lohan walks up to the table of what’s described as the “Unfriendly Black Hotties” and gives them a big wave and a bigger smile and says “Jambo!” (Side note, girl why the fuck would you speak Swahili at them, like I know you grew up in Kenya but surely you understand that Black Americans exist.) And they just...stare at her in confusion. 
> 
> I don’t really know where I’m going with this, except that a) it was actually super upsetting to realize as a fourteen-year-old that THAT’S the sum total of what I’m relegated to in the dominant cultural narrative and b) it’s fucking exhausting that my regular resting face is perceived as “unfriendly” by white people and c) the Black Kids Lunch Table is such a Thing that it needed no explanation in the movie. It was a throwaway joke. 
> 
> Why do all the Black kids sit together in the cafeteria? Why is there a Black Kids Lunch Table?
> 
> Anytime someone asks me that, I ask them whether they’ve ever sat at that table, with the Black kids. The answer is, invariably, no. No, of course not, because… 
> 
> … you would feel awkward and out of place? 
> 
> … you would feel judged for how you talk, or the words you use? like you might accidentally say the wrong thing, or like anything you say will probably be misconstrued?
> 
> … you would be totally isolated, the only one of your kind in a group of people who all share a common culture that you don’t have access to? 
> 
> … you would constantly have to be on your guard, when all you’re trying to do is eat your lunch? 
> 
> Why do all the Black kids sit together in the cafeteria? Why isn’t Tharkay joining the aviators’ campfires? Why do marginalized people seek out community -- or barring that, solitude -- in oppressive spaces? 
> 
> THAT’S why. 
> 
> Hope that helps <3 
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***


	4. Istanbul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can kinda sorta figure out when one of my Author’s Notes has *struck a chord* because the hit count on the fic goes up with a quickness… and it gets reeeeeeeeeeaaaalllllllll quiet in the comments.
> 
> (lol) 
> 
> If you have any sort of internal response to anything in the Author’s Notes, I hope you’ll share it here -- as I’ve said before, this is kind of a lot for me, so. It’s nice to know when people are engaging. Especially to all my marginalized kin: if this is at all validating for you or reflective of any part of your experience, please… I would feel a lot less alone out here if you told me so. 
> 
> The updated Author’s Note at the end of this chapter is dedicated to YaviA and Sophredrick <3 
> 
> *** 
> 
> Any dialogue marked with an asterisk* is quoted directly from canon!
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this chapter was Cold War by Janelle Monáe.

#  **Istanbul ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay cleans his knife**

*******

Tharkay had already resolved to face the guards alone when he dropped from his position halfway up the palace wall and turned, drawing a knife from his boot and cursing himself --  _ damned fool, never let the Englishman go first, you know this _ . He had been distracted by thoughts of Sara and gold, eggs and dragons and marriage; and now he was paying the price: crossing blades with the Sultan’s guards and jeopardizing the outcome of his mission. 

It was a shock, therefore, to feel the  _ whoosh _ of displaced air near him, and to hear the crunch of bone as Captain Laurence fell upon the other guard from the top of the wall and thereby dispatched him with a quickness, knocking the man’s head against the cobblestones. 

Still he did not let the surprise overset him, and after seeing to his opponent Tharkay seized Captain Laurence’s arm and dragged him up; together they escaped down the street. The desperate sprint gave Tharkay a little time to fly up and away while his body ran -- he looked over their position, allowing his thoughts to arrange themselves into a picture, orienting himself relative to the warren of hidey-holes and escape routes he had collected throughout the city. 

Not having a moment to lose, Tharkay was heartened somewhat to realize that Captain Laurence was following at his elbow unbidden: subtly but unmistakably ceding his superior knowledge and expertise. 

The good captain did however hesitate when beckoned into the ruin which Tharkay knew to contain an entrance into the tunnels below the city; though Tharkay supposed he could not particularly blame him for his reluctance to enter into what must seem to him a terrible place to end trapped, and anyway he came inside quickly enough with a little encouragement. 

Once they had gone underground, Captain Laurence again proved himself useful, managing to signal Tharkay without giving them away; following his lead when he observed Tharkay searching for the channel which would lead them out: even using his finely crafted sword as a sounding-rod for it in the sewer water. 

It was another long chase after that, through tunnels and stenches he would not care to identify; and still Captain Laurence kept pace with him, right up until they crept out of a storm sewer into an empty street.

Tharkay, quivering from the exertion of the climb and from lifting the heavy iron grate above his head with no little strain, staggered out into the evening air, very nearly crawling along the ground as he pulled himself up and out.

He gasped, hands on his knees, gathering his wits; though his body had reached its limit, his mind raced: the pursuers would be coming; he must seal off the tunnel entrance and keep moving, find a place to go to ground and wait out the rest of the pursuit -- he needed only to catch his breath; in the next moment he would...but no, Captain Laurence was already moving, dragging the enormous grate back over the tunnel entrance and securing it with a branch torn from a nearby sapling. 

For an instant they looked at each other and exhaled. But there was no time to rest; the captain took Tharkay’s arm and together they staggered off down the street, leaning on one another for support like two drunken merrymakers. 

When they reached the palace walls, Captain Laurence undertook to boost Tharkay up first without any prompting; Tharkay, having reached the top, turned and offered Laurence his hand, and felt him return the grip on his wrist with equal pressure as Tharkay pulled him up. 

Just inside the grounds there was a small fountain, and some flora for cover, and the spot they had chosen to come over the wall was as good as any to rest for a moment and allow their heartbeats to slow; to master control of their breath and allow a measure of calm to return to their minds. 

Leaning against the fountain, Tharkay again flew up and out of himself, focusing his eyes on nothing in particular and spreading his awareness to fill the space. The water was gurgling; the jasmine was blooming. Somewhere nearby was the aviary; he could hear the cries of the Sultan’s peacocks.  _ These things are real, _ he said to himself,  _ the stone and the grass beneath me, the birdsong and the wind in the trees.  _

In time Tharkay pulled out his knife, still bloody from the man he had stabbed, and began to clean and polish it, making sure not to attract any undue attention with the sound. The familiar ritual grounded him; he had nearly regained his equilibrium, had almost started to enjoy the quiet, had in fact nearly forgotten Captain Laurence’s presence when the man himself had to open his mouth and ruin it. 

“I would say something to you, on matters as they stand between us,”* said Captain Laurence into the darkness, and it was devastating. 

Devastating, yes, because here it came, the _ Look here, good fellow, it’s all very well for you to find us an escape... must remember you are under my command… cannot tolerate such insubordination... _ Tharkay braced himself, blinking away tears of exhaustion and rage, concentrating on bringing the whetstone along his blade very, very slowly. “Very well, say what you will.”

“I spoke earlier today in haste, and in a manner which I would ordinarily disdain to use to any man in my service. And yet even now I hardly know how I should apologize to you,”* said Captain Laurence. 

The moment of which he spoke had been immensely satisfying to Tharkay: after no little effort, he had finally been proven right about the captain’s polite facade; to hear Captain Laurence apologize for it now was not a little disconcerting. Tharkay managed to hide his shock only by focusing all of his energy and strength on the familiar scrape and grind of his knife, the shape of blade against stone, the glint of steel. Though the angle of approach was new, this was surely an introduction to a tired justification of the perpetually ensuing insult; he did not like it in the least. “I beg you not to trouble yourself further, let it all pass; I promise you I will not repine upon it,”* he said. 

“I have considered what to make of your behavior,” continued Captain Laurence, bowling right over Tharkay’s deflection, “and I cannot make you out; tonight you have not only saved my life, but materially contributed to the progress of our mission. And if I consider only the final consequences of your actions, throughout our expedition, there is hardly any room for complaint; indeed you have rather steadfast brought us through one danger and the next, often at your own peril. But twice now you have abandoned your post, in circumstances fraught with innumerable difficulties, with a secrecy both unnecessary and contrived, leaving us as a consequence adrift and prey to grave anxieties.”*

Tharkay was...wrong-footed, caught off guard, by Captain Laurence’s observations, by the simple fact that Laurence had taken the time to not only notice but to analyze his behavior, to  _ wonder  _ about his motives. For once, he did not know how to answer. “Perhaps it did not occur to me my absence would occasion such dismay,”* he said finally, a weak parry which nevertheless provoked a reaction, though not the one Tharkay expected.

“Kindly do not represent yourself to me as a fool. I could more easily believe you the most brazen traitor who has ever walked the earth, and the most inconsistent besides.”* There was Captain Laurence’s politely furious voice, familiar in other circumstances, yes; but this voice from him now, his taking insult at the implication that he might think Tharkay unintelligent was...unanticipated. 

“Thank you; that is a handsome compliment.” Tharkay knew his tone to sound sarcastic, there was no hope for that; still he gave his thanks sincerely. “But there seems to me little point in disputation, when you will not wish my services much longer regardless.”* He did not say:  _ I will leave you at the earliest opportunity.  _

“Whether for a minute or a month, still I will have done with these games,” said Captain Laurence. “I am grateful to you, and if you depart, you will go with my thanks. But if you stay, I will have your promise that you will henceforth abide by my command, and cease this haring-off without leave; I will not have a man in my service whom I doubt, and Tharkay, I think you like to be doubted.”* 

Captain Laurence was close, so close to the center, that Tharkay could not help but drop his knife and his pretense, because to be thought unintelligent was offensive, if expected; but to be _misinterpreted_ could not be borne. “You may say rather that I like to know if I am doubted; and you will not be far wrong.”* 

“You have certainly done all you could to ensure it,”* Captain Laurence volleyed back. 

In for a penny. “That seems to you I suppose perverse, but I have long since been taught that my face and my descent bar me from the natural relations of gentlemen, with no action on my part. And if I am not to be trusted, I would rather provoke a little open suspicion, freely expressed, than meekly endure endless slights and whispers not quite hidden behind my back.”* 

Captain Laurence responded earnestly, and with perfect naïveté: “I too have endured society’s whispers, and every one of my officers; we are not in service to those small-minded creatures who like to sneer in corners, but to our country; and that service is a better defense of our honor, in the face of petty insult, than the most violent objections we could make.”*

That set him off. 

“I wonder if you would speak so if you were forced to endure it wholly alone,” Tharkay chimed viciously, using Laurence’s own aristocratic cut-glass tone, “If not only society but all those on whom you might justly have a claim of brotherhood looked upon you with that same disdain, your superior officers and your comrades-in-arms; if all hope of independence and advancement were denied you and, as a sop, you were offered the place of a superior servant, somewhere between a valet and a trained dog.”* There was a ringing silence after that, and Tharkay caught himself, breathing hard. 

The captain was quiet for a moment, considering him, and then said: “Am I meant to take these charges as laid to my own account?”* 

“No,” said Tharkay softly, having collected himself a little. “I beg pardon for my vehemence; the injuries of which I speak are no less bitter for their age. What incivilities  _ you _ have offered me, I do not deny I have provoked; I have formed a habit of anticipation: amusing, to me at least, if perhaps unjust to my company.”* He did not say:  _ I must choose laughter, Captain; else it would be despair. _

Captain Laurence was quiet again for a long while after that, longer than Tharkay knew how to interpret. That considering look was in his eye, and Tharkay found himself uncertain, wondering what the captain could be thinking, unsure how his words had landed. He had not spoken of this method of defense, this habit of his, to anyone before; those who understood it did so without explanation, and those who did not were often its cause. 

And then Laurence was standing, and so Tharkay got to his feet, unable to determine the captain’s intent, keeping balanced in his stance and ready to bolt at the least sign--but Captain Laurence was extending his hand, and looking him full in the face, and then he said: “If you can believe it so in this case, then give me your word, and take mine--I hope I may in safety promise to give no less than full measure of loyalty to any man who gives me his, and I think I would be sorrier to lose you than I yet know.”*

The water was gurgling; the jasmine was blooming; and somewhere nearby, somebody was cooking lamb. Tharkay stared at the captain’s hand, unable to square this moment with the treatment he’d received from the British for the entire thirty years of his existence. 

Captain Laurence’s actions simply did not make sense. In fact, reviewing the evening’s events, Tharkay realized that Laurence’s behavior had been rather extraordinary for an Englishman. From the moment they had been discovered Tharkay had expected the usual fare: the inevitable betrayal and abandonment, and the self-satisfied sneer of gentility which seemed to somehow always convince the wearer of the unquestioning righteousness of his actions -- but that had not come. 

Instead, Captain Laurence had unthinkingly shown him a measure of that particular brand of respect and brotherhood which, in Tharkay’s experience, British gentlemen reserved only for each other. 

He had said “if you can believe it so in this case;” he was sensible that in fact Tharkay had good reason  _ not _ to trust him. He had not commanded; he had  _ asked _ . He had not demanded Tharkay’s obedience, or his service; he had asked for his loyalty and his word, and offered his own in return. Measure for measure, he had said. Tharkay’s breath caught in his chest. It had been ten years and more since an Englishman had addressed him as anything like an equal, since before his father had died. 

And now here stood Captain William Laurence, looking for all the world like one of Tharkay’s schoolboy fantasies sprung to life, earnest eyes shining and hand extended, and he wanted  _ so badly  _ at this particular moment to be able to believe in something… 

...and so he found himself staring at the captain’s hand, wondering just how much his profession of loyalty might be worth. He could not credit that Laurence would give him  _ full  _ measure, true; but Laurence’s actions this night had given Tharkay reason to hope, despite years of evidence to the contrary, that this would not be just another oath pledged in the dark.

And even if it were, Tharkay knew even as he had the thought that he would still take the Captain at his word for now, for Temeraire’s sake. 

“Well,” he said, and took Laurence’s hand. “I am set in my ways, but as you are willing to take my word, Captain, I suppose I would be churlish to refuse to offer it.”* Laurence’s grip was strong, and straightforward, and sincere; Tharkay could not help but return it. 

He did not say:  _ God help me.  _

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laurence: ok seriously tho, like, what is your deal ??????  
> Tharkay: lol idk what you meannnnn  
> Laurence: can u not 
> 
> Tharkay: yo people are kinda racist at me sometimes  
> Laurence: omggggggg i totally get it they’re mean to me and my friends too #bluelivesmatter  
> Laurence: but like  
> Laurence: have you tried just being nicer???  
> Tharkay: *eye twitches* 
> 
> #Laurence is one hundred thousand percent still a cop at this point in his development #peep his self-reflection re: Granby/Little in Blood of Tyrants if you don’t believe me #and tone policing is the most infuriating thing #you really can’t blame Tharkay for going off on him
> 
> ***
> 
> I absolutely love this Istanbul fountain scene because it is the first time we see Laurence start to grapple with his own cognitive dissonance. When Tharkay goes off on him, Laurence doesn’t respond with (much) defensiveness. Our dear sweet precious Laurence reflects internally, does some uncomfortable thinking, and then fucking acts on it. 
> 
> “But nb***, what do you MEAN, he acts on it?” 
> 
> I mean that LAURENCE CHANGES THE THING HE ASKS OF THARKAY. 
> 
> At the beginning of their conversation, Laurence asks for Tharkay’s OBEDIENCE. Then, after Laurence is all “I think you like to be doubted #alllivesmatter #justafewbadapples” and Tharkay loses his shit, Laurence...just listens. He listens, and he BELIEVES HIM, and then he...he THINKS about what Tharkay said? And then he ...uses it to inform his actions toward Tharkay moving forward????? 
> 
> After Laurence reflects on what Tharkay says about his lived experiences, he literally goes from positioning Tharkay as his underling to positioning him as his EQUAL: “I’ll have your promise that you will abide by my command” → “I may in safety promise to give no less than full measure of loyalty to any man who gives me his.” 
> 
> So here’s what that uncomfortable self-reflection looks like: 
> 
> Tharkay: *eye twitches*  
> Tharkay: omg you cannot be fucking serious  
> Tharkay: my very good sir,  
> Tharkay: * we * are * not * the * same *  
> Laurence: …  
> Laurence:  
> Laurence: huh ok, this dude is clearly a badass and he’s chosen this life as his best option, so  
> Laurence: people must’ve treated him REAL bad, like, a lot  
> Laurence: and like, i’m kinda... definitely... one of those people??? at least a little bit????  
> Laurence: because i’ve been lowkey suspicious of him this whole time, haven’t i  
> Laurence:  
> Laurence: … fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck…..  
> Laurence:  
> Laurence:  
> Laurence: ok lemme try my best to do better, imma offer him my loyalty and then fucking back it up to the nth degree cause this man’s got nothing to prove to me, like his actions have actually already shown that he’s the shit and also honorable and loyal af, so  
> Laurence: *extends hand* 
> 
> … and THAT’S why Tharkay is like “i mean i guess it would be churlish to refuse” aka “holy shit wtf” and chooses to shake his hand. Because that uncomfortable self-reflection and subsequent immediate implementation of the lessons imparted? literally NEVER HAPPENS. 
> 
> (singing) LET’S GO LAURENCE *clap* *clap* *clapclapclap* 
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***


	5. Dresden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Per usual all dialogue marked with an asterisk* is lifted directly from canon (as is the action in those scenes). 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this chapter was Good Riddance by Green Day (A CLASSIC) (THE NINETIES)

#  **Dresden ;**

**or,**

**aight imma head out**

*******

Ordinarily Tharkay would simply disappear, knowing that none of their company would think to look for him until he was long gone. This time, though, he had given his word that he would at least say good-bye; and he did not take his oaths lightly. 

He knew that of the two the harder leave-taking would be Temeraire’s; and so when sunset came he went to the dragon first. 

“But  _ why, _ ” said Temeraire, “why must you leave when we have only just got here; won’t you stay and help fight Napoleon with us?” He kneaded the ground before him with his claws as he spoke, digging up great clumps of dirt and roots: a nervous habit. 

“Would that I could stay with you, Temeraire,” said Tharkay gently. “But I have duties elsewhere, and I must away.” 

“Oh,  _ duty, _ ” said Temeraire crossly. “Oh, very well, but I will miss you, Tharkay. I hope we might meet again soon. You have so many excellent stories, and you were ever so brave in Istanbul.”

Back in Istanbul when they had been planning the mission in the palace baths, Tharkay had been honestly surprised to see Laurence keep the promise he’d made that night by the fountain. Laurence and Granby had been arguing; of course Laurence, gallant and simple, had wanted to go --  _ haring-off on his own _ , Tharkay thought with a wry smile -- to locate the eggs. Granby was quite right, of course, Laurence could not be permitted to comprise their entire away team; but Laurence was stubborn, and so Tharkay had cut in. 

“If I may, I will go; alone I am reasonably sure I can find a way to the eggs, without rousing any alarm, and then I can return and guide the rest of the party there,”* he said. 

“Tharkay,” said Laurence, “this is no service you owe us; I would not order even a man under oath of arms to undertake it, without he were willing.”* It was perhaps a first, to hear an Englishman tell him that Tharkay owed him nothing. It made it easier for Tharkay to volunteer, that Laurence had not asked. 

“But I am willing, and more likely to come back whole from it than anyone else here,”* he said. He did not say,  _ I am trained for this, and you would only be in the way.  _

“At the cost of running thrice the risk, going and coming back and going again, with a fresh chance of running into the guards every time through,”* said Laurence, and then Temeraire had jumped in. 

“So it  _ is  _ very dangerous then. You are  _ not  _ to go, at all, Granby is quite right; and neither is anyone else.”* 

“Oh, Hell,”* said Laurence, and Tharkay raised an eyebrow: he had not known that the good captain had it in him to swear even mildly. 

“It seems there is very little alternative to my going,”* he said. 

“Not you either!”* Temeraire’s sharp voice brooked no argument, and Tharkay was shocked.

He had not expected this, not from Temeraire and not from Laurence: concern for his safety, a sense of belonging, a measure of loyalty. Somehow, Laurence had actually kept his word. 

On his way from Temeraire’s clearing to Laurence’s tent, Tharkay ran into Mr. Keynes, who eyed his pack and cloak and said, “You’re leaving us, then?” At Tharkay’s nod, the surgeon clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Good man. Take care of that leg,” before going on his way. 

The injury Keynes had referred to was a gouge on Tharkay’s thigh, a long wicked burn carved into his flesh by a hot poker in the harem baths. Tharkay had been astonished when Laurence had noticed him take the blow; had not only noticed but immediately looked to his wellbeing. 

And then Granby and Laurence, the first officer and captain himself, had carried him up the stairs and out of the baths.  _ Carried  _ him, when he might have fallen behind. 

And when Temeraire had come for them, Tharkay had been pulled onto the harness by too many hands to count; and before he knew quite what was happening the crew were latching him on with the smooth, efficient movements of long training in the face of peril. 

The crew -- the officers -- he had not been left to fend for himself, not for an instant. The whole mission, he had led them; he had  _ commanded _ them, even; and Laurence had not doubted him once: no, and neither had his men. 

Not three minutes later, he became conscious of Emily Roland pelting toward him on coltish legs and shouting his name at top volume. “They said you’re leaving, I’m come to say good-bye, and thank you for the lessons,” she panted when she reached him. 

At some point during their flight through Austrian territory, Roland had seen him with his set of knives and asked about them. Tharkay had considered her a moment, and then -- conscious that a young woman in His Majesty’s Service would likely have more need for close combat training than her fellows, and indeed perhaps  _ because _ of them -- he had undertaken to show her how she might stow small blades on her own person, in such a way that would allow for easy access without impeding her movement or showing beneath her clothing. 

Now she extended her hand; Tharkay took it, and they shook with the gravity of shared understanding, her grip forceful even at her age. “I wish we’d had time for you to teach me more moves,” she said. 

“Practice what you do know until it becomes instinct -- it will serve you much better in a fight to know a few things very well than a wide variety of poorly-executed tricks,” said Tharkay, and they parted. 

Tharkay walked on. Yes, he had respect here, a measure of it at least, and not just from the dragon and his captain. He clenched his jaw; this was how it began, the cycle he knew all too well: the luring-in, the fellowship -- and then, at the least indication -- suspicion, distrust, and rejection. He was glad to be the one doing the leaving this time, and on good terms besides. 

It was full dark when Tharkay finally made it to Laurence’s tent, where the captain was sitting at a makeshift desk, head in his hands, over a stack of papers. Tharkay tapped on the tent pole. 

Laurence stood then, and waved him in, and -- gave him the chair. Well, it was not properly a chair, more a box and some cushions, but -- Laurence stood, and said “No, sit; I will do perfectly well here,”* and then Tharkay took the seat, and then Laurence -- Laurence  _ sat on the ground before him. _

These things were true: the cushions were soft beneath him; and there was a lamp on the table; and outside all of the sounds of camp remained, the Prussians and the British and their dragons; and here, inside the tent, Laurence had given Tharkay the chair and then sat on the ground before him. 

Tharkay could not allow himself to reflect on it; Laurence was looking at him expectantly, and so he neatly folded and tucked away his feelings to contemplate another time. “I have only come for a moment,” he said. “Lieutenant Granby tells me we are not to leave; I understand Temeraire has been taken in lieu of twenty dragons.”* 

“Flattering, I suppose, if considered that way,” said Laurence dryly. “Yes; we are established here, if against our design, and whether we can fill that tally or no, we mean to do what we can.”*

Tharkay did not say:  _ despite how you have kept your word thus far, this is why I cannot trust you, Captain: you will always choose your duty to the Empire over your responsibility to Temeraire, as if he were a vein of gold to be quarried.  _ He said, “Then I will keep my word to you and tell you, this time, that I mean to depart. I doubt an untrained man would be anything other than a dangerous nuisance aboard Temeraire’s back in an aerial battle, and you hardly need a guide when you cannot stir out of the camp: I cannot be of any further use to you.”* 

“No, and I will not press you to stay, in our present circumstances, though I am sorry to lose you against a future need; and I cannot at the moment reward you as your pains have deserved,”* said Laurence. 

Tharkay could not in any case have taken Laurence’s money in good conscience, not once he had seen how devotedly Laurence spent his funds on Temeraire and his men; and with Tharkay already being paid by Whitehall besides. 

Of course, he could not say that, so he said instead, “Let us defer it. Who knows? We may meet again; the world is not after all so very large a place.”* He stood and offered Laurence his hand, glad for once to leave a mission with good memories of an Englishman; and not allowing himself to consider any of the implications of that which he had so recently tucked away. 

“I hope we shall, and that I may be of use to you in turn, someday,”* said Laurence, returning the handshake. 

This time, Tharkay even believed that Laurence meant his promise.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone: hey Tharkay we appreciate and respect you  
> Tharkay: *flees* 
> 
> Whew, that's the first arc complete! This is the first fic I've posted, so THANKS to everyone who is reading and engaging - I love seeing what people pick up on / enjoy. Hope you'll keep reading and commenting. 
> 
> Next up: will Tharkay rescue the aviators? ...probably! but he's gonna have to process some things first!


	6. The Pamirs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure there's no canon dialogue in this chapter but if there is, it's marked with an asterisk* 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this was The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything by Relient K -- anybody else grow up watching VeggieTales only to realize much later in life that it's like 97% content from the Hebrew Bible? No? Just me? Cooooooool.

#  **The Pamirs ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay expands his vocabulary**

*******

There was a word in Durzagh which had no direct translation in any of the human languages Tharkay knew. It was a trilling sound, hard to imitate with his limited human capacity, and its meaning seemed to shift with the pitch and tone of the trill as well as the speaker, though Tharkay could affix no pattern to it. He had encountered the trill before, had heard it often enough in passing; but he had not thought to remark upon it before he heard it from Arkady when he came upon the pack in their mountain caverns. 

“Ah, Tharkay!” said Arkady, spreading his wings and arms wide in welcome. “We were just speaking of you, yes, you and Temeraire!” He looked to Wringe, who flicked her wings in agreement. 

Tharkay did not know how to respond, and so he said, “I am very glad to have found you.” Gherni sidled up to him and curled the end of her tail around his calf; he did not know how to respond to that either, so he did not. 

“That you should come upon us at the moment we spoke your name - yes, it is _aaa’AAArrrrrrrrrrrcq_ , is it not?” said Arkady, pitching his voice to the rest of the pack, who responded with hoots, cheers, and all other manner of draconic affirmation. Tharkay, being unsure of the exact meaning, gathered from context that the trill meant “destiny,” or perhaps “fate.” 

It had not been fated; no, not destined or even expected for Tharkay to find the feral pack. He had intended to report back to Istanbul as ordered, but when he’d come upon the city, he had paused, looking at its spires and hearing its songs, and could not go in. 

He did not want to see Maden, not in the slightest, not when Sara was surely married and out of the field by now. He did not know who they might assign next to the seraglio, but he did not want to face the loss of the only other operative who trusted his word without question. 

That first day in the palace, she had only needed to catch his eye -- no signal at all, just a glance -- he had no hope of having that level of communication with his next partner, no matter who they sent him. 

No, he did not want to report to Istanbul. 

  
  


***

  
  


The second distinct meaning which Tharkay was able to discern for that trilling word was: “for its own sake; or, for the pleasure of it.” 

While in flight over the mountains, Tharkay had asked Wringe and Arkady why they were so eager to rescue Temeraire; of course they had done their best to pretend that they and the pack were in it for the cows, but Tharkay had spied the real concern with which they had responded upon hearing that Temeraire and his crew were in trouble. 

Arkady answered calmly, “Well, Wringe and me, we want to fuck Temeraire,” and Wringe chimed in with a noise so explicit, a sort of rhythmic squelching, that Tharkay could only respond with a wide-eyed stare. 

Finally, he managed, “...what?” 

Arkady slowed down to look at him with especial concern, then, and explained that there were times when two or more dragons might engage in mating-type behaviors with one another -- and here he used that trilling word, drawing it out as if Tharkay were a child who might not quite understand -- _aa’AAAArrrrrRRRrrrRRRRrrrrcq_ \-- and it had nothing to do with eggs; it just felt good; and Arkady and Wringe thought that perhaps if they rescued Temeraire, he was more likely to respond favorably to their invitation to engage in this manner of relation with them. 

Tharkay was familiar with the concept, having played what might be Temeraire’s role some few times during his travels, but he had not expected to find similar practices among dragons, though upon consideration it was not a surprise.

“I see,” said Tharkay, and did not comment further. 

“So why do _you_ want to rescue Temeraire?” asked Arkady. 

Tharkay didn’t have the words in Durzagh, or perhaps in any language, to explain the motives which drove him. There was something in the dragon which reminded him of himself, once upon a time; when he’d been a bright young child who had needed someone, _anyone_ , to take him by the hand and explain that there was nothing wrong with him; no, _they_ were the ones who were wrong. 

He could not trust Laurence to do it, not when he was so clearly the Empire’s man, and Temeraire was too -- _good_ , too powerful, to be brought low, to be exploited and hurt as Tharkay had been. 

Tharkay wanted to protect Temeraire, not from Laurence, no; but from Laurence’s blind trust in his chain of command; and his understanding of duty - no matter how much he loved his dragon, Laurence’s precious honor would not allow for him to ever choose Temeraire over the orders of British Empire. And the Empire did not have Temeraire’s wellbeing in mind, not in the slightest. 

Arkady dipped a little, to get his attention; Tharkay had been lost in thought. “Is it because you want to fuck Temeraire’s captain?” 

Tharkay considered it for a moment. “He is pretty,” he said, “but not worth the trouble.” The youth he’d been ten years ago might have indulged in fantasies of a grateful Captain Laurence kneeling before him; the man he’d grown to be had had such breadth and depth of superior experience that he remembered the simplicity of his imagination back then with something like fondness. 

  
  


***

  
  


The third distinct meaning for the trill was, “for a lark,” or, “to see if I could.” 

He was flying with Wringe; the pack was over a lake, and the wind of their passage sent ripples across the surface, blue sky and white clouds and all color of dragonkind reflected back at them; and looking down at the water Tharkay could not but find it beautiful. 

Without warning, Wringe drew in her wings and dropped like a stone. 

Tharkay could not speak, could not think, could only clutch at Wringe in terror as they hurtled downward, rolling over and over in the air, the water’s surface rushing closer with frightening speed. 

And then with a _crack!_ like a billowing sail, Wringe snapped her wings open and leveled out, skimming the lake’s surface with one great claw and sending a spray of mist and rainbows to either side of them. 

When they had regained normal altitude, Tharkay found enough voice to ask, “...why did you do that?” His throat was hoarse from screaming, though he could not remember doing it. 

Wringe looked back at him, gave the head-waggle that was the draconic equivalent of a wing-shrug while in flight, and then trilled: “ _aa’AArrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrcq._ ” 

  
  


***

  
  


The fourth meaning Tharkay could distinguish seemed to be something like: “given what you know of yourself, my character, and circumstances as they stand, how could you have ever possibly expected any other outcome?” 

They had finally made it to Europe, and if Tharkay had thought that a Chinese dragon and a British company assigned to a Prussian military force might be easy to track across a war-ravaged Poland, he had been wrong, wrong, wrong. 

If villagers did not run them out of town on sight -- Tharkay had had a hard enough time persuading Europeans to speak to him even before he’d had a pack of twenty feral dragons at his back -- they had conflicting information about where the armies were headed, or who might be with them. 

It was getting harder and harder to get word of the Prussian forces’ movements, so when the pack came upon the shepherds, Tharkay immediately looked to Arkady. 

“I need to talk to these men,” he said. 

Arkady extended one wing toward them as if to say, _go right ahead._

“It is very important that they speak to me, for they might be able to tell us where Temeraire is,” said Tharkay. 

“It sounds as if you should talk to them,” said Arkady. 

Tharkay looked at Arkady sternly. “They will not talk to me if you and the pack descend upon their herds when I have engaged the shepherds, as you did outside of Istanbul.” 

Arkady shook his head emphatically, and looked to Wringe, who did the same. “That was then,” said Arkady. “We are here for Temeraire, now, not for taking sheep.” 

Tharkay studied the lines of Arkady’s posture, opened wide as if to say _who, me?_ The damned rascal could make himself look as innocent as the lambs they ate, when he wanted to. “Do I have your promise?” asked Tharkay. 

“Yes, yes of course,” said Arkady, and Wringe nodded. 

Tharkay was not easy in his mind, turning his back to the ferals, but he had no other choice -- they had seen no sign of Temeraire’s company in the last week, and shepherds almost always knew who had passed through their grazing areas recently. He approached the men. 

Not two minutes after he had engaged them, Arkady and the pack descended upon the herd and made off with enough sheep to feed them all for three days. 

He could not say that he was angry or even particularly surprised, no; just disappointed. There was naught he could do but throw Whitehall’s gold at the shepherds in apology and allow himself to be pulled onto Gherni’s back as the pack took flight. 

When they made camp a short while later, Tharkay stalked over to Arkady with murder in his eyes. Arkady, shameless pirate that he was, only wing-shrugged at Tharkay and said, “ _aa’AArrrrrrrrrcq.”_

They ate well, that night. In fact, the feral pack were excellent hunters: they ate well most nights, and the pack always shared with him - every evening, Wringe or Arkady or Gherni would bring a haunch or shoulder of their catch to his campfire. Wringe would sometimes sit with him by the fire, waiting until he’d roasted and salted both their portions -- she had developed a taste for cooked meat -- and then they would eat together, sitting in quiet side by side on the ground while around them the rest of the pack ate, or bickered, or tussled, or napped. Tonight was one of those nights; Tharkay had finished eating and now leaned against Wringe’s side and stared into the fire, sated and comfortable. 

He still would not have done it, if not for that last leave-taking. 

He had been camped outside of Istanbul when he finally unfolded the feelings he had tucked away, that night in Dresden. The time had come to make a decision: on to the mountains, or report to Maden? No matter how much Temeraire needed help, Tharkay would not throw his pearls before swine: he would not make this effort for the dragon if his captain was unworthy of it. 

But he could not deny that Laurence had treated him...not the same as his men, no; better: Laurence treated Tharkay as himself; he took Tharkay on his own terms; he did not just profess to consider them equals -- he lived it out. 

He had given Tharkay the chair and sat on the ground before him. He did not consider it beneath him to sit at Tharkay’s feet; it did not diminish him in any way to do so. He had done it because he _genuinely_ _saw no reason to maintain a position of superiority in Tharkay’s presence._

Tharkay had been shocked, yes, shocked and gratified; in that moment, he had experienced a wave of goodwill toward Laurence which he absolutely refused to identify as loyalty. 

For in a just world, Tharkay would owe Laurence nothing for having treated him with basic courtesy, for having kept his word to him once. The fact that Laurence was unique among his countrymen in his treatment of Tharkay did not so much speak well of him as it did throw into sharp relief the speciousness of his fellows. 

Measure for measure - that had been their agreement. Had Laurence shown him loyalty enough for this? 

The question weighed heavy in his mind; but even as he asked himself, he knew his answer. 

***

The trill’s fifth and final meaning, as best as Tharkay could tell, was simply “because.” 

Gherni had taken to watching him work, in the evenings while the pack hunters were out foraging and Tharkay had a little time to himself. Not much bigger than a large cart-horse, she was of a size to drape her tail around Tharkay’s shoulders or waist, and she would sit with him as he sketched out their route, occasionally asking questions or pointing out an error. 

At night, she would sometimes trundle over to his bedroll and curl up next to him, occasionally extending a wing or an arm to bring him closer to her, as if she were a child with a doll. The first time it happened, Tharkay had woken with a start, and made an inquiring noise. 

Gherni did not even open her eyes, but only trilled: “ _a’Arrrrcq_ ,” and wound the end of her tail around his leg; and Tharkay, not quite knowing what else to do, squirmed into a comfortable position against her side and went back to sleep. 

  
  


***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arkady: lol bro are u into Laurence  
> Tharkay: nah i don't really fuck colonizers anymore tbh
> 
> YOU CANNOT TELL ME that the stunningly beautiful genius polymath androgyne international bad bitch of mystery Tenzing Tharkay didn't go on a voyage of self-discovery that included all of the life-affirming queer BIPOC sex anyone's heart could ever desire 
> 
> matter of fact there's a chapter to that effect so STAY TUNED 
> 
> Next up: the gang rescues Temeraire!


	7. Danzig

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW. 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this chapter was Haven't You Noticed (I'm A Star) from the Steven Universe soundtrack, written by the inimitable Rebecca Sugar, who is featured allllll up and down this playlist. 
> 
> As always, any dialogue marked with an asterisk* is lifted directly from canon.

#  **Danzig ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay is gladly received**

*******

The French dragons scattered like geese before them. 

Wringe roared. Arkady roared. Tharkay roared and grinned: he couldn’t help it. They flew in low over the sunlit sea; the salt wind blew his hair from his face and stole his voice; it did not matter: they had made it. 

As they neared the fort, the war cries turned to whoops and yells -- salutations and hails -- cheers and ululations. 

Arkady landed in the courtyard directly in front of Temeraire, and it was better than Macao, better than Istanbul: they entered to noise -- the shouts and cries of men and dragons, all raised in welcome, for  _ them _ ; and within the fortress walls it was a tumult of yowls and exclamations -- Temeraire was asking Arkady, “But whatever are you doing here?”* and Arkady was fair vibrating with excitement, strutting about in front of Temeraire, coiling and uncoiling his tail, preening and tossing his head. 

Tharkay was quiet. 

It was nice to have this moment of stillness, avoiding notice in the rushing tide of dragons; he could sit on Arkady’s back and soak it in:  _ this _ time, the confusion caused by his entrance was born of elated disbelief rather than blind bias. Tharkay relaxed control of his feelings, just a little, and allowed himself to enjoy some of the cacophony, the overwhelming wave of goodwill and celebration rushing over him, the windfall of aid unlooked-for and friends well met. 

The quiet ended the moment his feet touched ground. Amid the din he heard his name and turned: Roland gave him only a moment’s notice before she tackled him with a flying leap, yelling something Tharkay could not quite decipher. Tharkay couldn’t resist swinging her around in circles before finally setting her on her feet, both of them quite dizzy and breathless with laughter.

And then Ferris was pounding him on the back; and someone else had clapped his shoulder, two other someones; no,  _ three  _ other someones, and Roland was tugging on his hand -- 

\-- and Tharkay turned, and Laurence was there, having been herded over by Gherni’s tail. The surprise, the joy, the effervescence -- it rolled off of him in waves like sparkling wine; and Tharkay drank it in. 

He tamped his feelings down long enough to put on a voice of clear bright crystal. “I hope we are not unwelcome,”* he said to Laurence with a perfectly straight face, as if they had chanced to meet in the drawing room. 

“Tharkay?” said Laurence, blue eyes brilliant with earnestness. “Most certainly you are welcome, are you responsible for this?”* 

For the second time that day, Tharkay could not help himself: he grinned. 

  
  


***

  
  


The stone was hard beneath him; the salt wind was rough on his face. Moonlight flowed silver-white over the ramparts. 

Tharkay had taken the opportunity, once the general melée had calmed and the senior officers had been called away to meet with the Prussian military leaders in light of the new developments, to slip away and snatch a few moments to himself. 

Here, up on the wall, he could fly out over the sea and allow himself to consider what it meant that they had made it here; how wonderful it had felt to be fêted upon his arrival rather than shunned; what it had been like to fly as part of a pack. 

When Laurence appeared he did not spoil the quiet but instead joined Tharkay in it, and Tharkay was glad for his solid presence. Laurence sat beside him against the wall and shared his flask of brandy; and Tharkay was glad for that, too: he needed a drink, after the journey they’d had. 

After they had each taken a drink in their turn, Laurence did not put the flask away but passed it back to Tharkay; and as he did so he contrived to brush the back of his fingers against Tharkay’s knee. It was a touch which could easily be construed as accidental, but Tharkay was fluent in this manner of coquetry: invisible to those who could not read its gestures; unmistakable to those who were well-versed. 

Interesting.

Tharkay took the flask and raised it to his mouth; he drank with languid grace and soft lips, tilting his head back with eyes closed, angling his face to catch the moonlight. He felt Laurence’s regard on him both soften and sharpen: an intensifying attention which set his hair on end. Tharkay opened his eyes to gaze sidelong at Laurence through his lashes -- yes, Laurence was looking, and not without interest. 

A brief wave of attraction rose in his core. Tharkay cocked an eyebrow at Laurence: a challenge. 

Laurence smiled, a little wry humor in his expression at being caught out, yes, but no trace of shame in his eyes. Then he stretched, and brought his hands to his hair under the guise of re-forming it into its queue; but as it was too short to be properly pulled back, he instead combed his fingers into his hair and shook it out so that it fell around his face in waves. When he was done, he looked up at Tharkay from beneath lowered lashes and a soft halo of spun silver. 

He really was  _ very _ pretty. 

That current rose again and caught between them -- a resonating hum which started low in Tharkay’s gut and seemed to reach out toward Laurence, growing in amplitude as their gazes met and began to harmonize... 

Arkady would be insufferable. 

It was easy enough to bring the moment to a close. Tharkay crooked a smile and bumped Laurence’s arm with his elbow, shunting the rising physical energy between them sideways into the rough affection of a comrade-in-arms. Laurence smiled back, sailing easily with the change in the wind. Tharkay could appreciate a man who enjoyed this game for its own sake, as he did; he passed Laurence the flask and did not say:  _ well played.  _

“We are to evacuate to Britain,” said Laurence. “Do you think the pack will do it?” 

Tharkay tugged the flask back and took a long swallow -- no finesse, just grounding himself in the burn in his throat and belly -- two, three more gulps before there was room for anything in him besides denial and the urge to flee. 

No, not Britain.  _ No. _

Laurence, bless him, withdrew the flask and his gaze. 

The back of Tharkay’s head hit the wall; the brandy ensured he did not feel the pain just yet. He closed his eyes. 

He had known, surely he must have known, that it was always going to end this way: back at the beginning. “ _ aaa’AArrrrrRRrrrcq _,” he said, and his laugh tasted like burning fruit and bitter earth. 

“Pardon?” said Laurence. 

“Nothing,” said Tharkay. 

Laurence again withdrew his regard, and Tharkay looked to the sky. He knew that there were constellations there; he knew that he knew their names, but he could not find the patterns. 

_ These things are here,  _ he told himself.  _ The sea and the walls and the waves, Laurence and the flask and me.  _ He forced his lungs to breathe with the sea, in and out. In and out. He was here. He was here with the waves. 

This exact moment -- this was precisely why, no matter how diverting it was to play at flirtation between himself and Laurence, he would not act on that attraction: for his own safety. 

To Laurence, returning to Britain meant returning home, to a place where he had influence and comrades and friends, a family who supported him and a government which had been constructed to preserve his every comfort. 

It clearly had not occurred to Laurence that returning to Britain had diametric implications for Tharkay. Out here, it was easy for them to take each other on their own terms, to forget that the relative freedom afforded them under the exigencies of war was not the way of the rest of the world.

No, things would be different, in Britain. Tharkay had no friends, no influence: he would be entirely dependent on Laurence’s goodwill. The attraction curdled in Tharkay’s gut. 

Perhaps it was the brandy. 

Perhaps it was fear. 

Because once he had breathed himself past his perpetual initial reaction -- that familiar reflexive denial and urge to flee -- he could admit that what he was feeling was fear, yes, fear and anxiety and uncertainty about his position. 

This afternoon had been -- wonderful. Truly it had, once Tharkay had allowed himself to feel it; it had been so good to feel as if he  _ belonged _ . As if by proving his worth to the aviators somehow he could change all of the circumstances which prevented him from ever being truly part of their fellowship. 

It had happened too many times before, that he had deceived himself into believing the reassurances of those who called themselves his friends, who treated him well when it was the two of them alone, or in isolation from their context; away from their schoolmates, their parents, their peers. 

But when the inevitable moment came that he was beset in their presence by that pervasive malice which underlay so many of his interactions on British soil, usually at the hands of those schoolmates or parents or peers, those same so-called friends would say...nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing: they who were in a position to do so did not speak up, leaving him to fend for himself; giving tacit approval by virtue of their silence. 

And the worst, oh, the most insulting, the salt in the wound: like clockwork, his erstwhile  _ friends _ would approach him after those interactions with tears in their eyes: professing to him how  _ unfairly  _ he’d been treated, how they hadn’t known what to  _ say _ , effusive in their sympathy but miserly in their action on his behalf. 

He could not regret the rescue, no; never that. But he did  _ not  _ want to return to Britain. 

_ You are safer now _ , he told himself.  _ You approach not as a supplicant but on the backs of twenty dragons.  _ He breathed with the waves: rough stone, silver moonlight, salt wind.  _ You are stronger now. You are safer. _ He breathed, and allowed his panic to pass; and he did not think about how they might effect the evacuation, or how the pack might receive the idea of passengers -- all of the logistical problems that wanted solving. Enough for now that he had accepted it. He breathed with the waves. 

All this time Laurence had not intruded, allowing Tharkay space to take in what had clearly been distressing news: a kindness. As Tharkay’s breath evened out and he brought his awareness back to his surroundings, he perceived Laurence chancing to glance at him every now and then with that same considering look of his. 

“Yes?” said Tharkay. 

“I would not burden you with my musings,” said Laurence. “You will soon be unlikely to enjoy any measure of tranquility for some little while, I am sure.” 

Tharkay said nothing, only looked at Laurence and waited. 

“Once again,” he said after a moment, “you have saved my life; and for that you have my gratitude, but this time you have also saved Temeraire’s, and that of our crew, and the thousands of Prussian soldiers who will now take up the fight against Napoleon on British soil.” 

“Yes,” said Tharkay. 

“I am...sorrowed, or angered--some measure of both, I think, if I may be so bold, to think of the treatment you must have endured at the hands of our countrymen, for it is become increasingly clear to me that you are a person of extraordinary ability driven from Britain for reasons entirely unjust,” said Laurence with that perfect naïveté. 

Tharkay eyed him sidelong, one brow raised. He did not say:  _ compliments ring hollow when grounded in condescension, Laurence.  _

“No, I am not--I assure you, it is not pity which drives my sentiments--rather, I am...quite in awe of you,” said Laurence. “That you should have made yourself into a man who is capable of all this,” he motioned to Tharkay’s person, and then in the direction of the dragons, “entirely on your own; that you should have come to our rescue at all.”

“Kindly do not flatter yourself,” said Tharkay. “We came to Temeraire’s rescue.” 

Laurence did not miss a beat. “Which further proves my point; certainly it does not hurt in any case, and I shall repeat once more that if ever there exist any means by which I may someday make some return, I hope I may have the honor of doing so.” 

Tharkay sighed, though not so loud that Laurence might hear, and did not say:  _ so it begins _ .

He had of course heard this countless times, right down to the wilful denial of pity; often just before the speakers perpetrated the very treatment they repudiated in the same breath. Those who professed that they did not allow his differences to color their perception of him were both lying to themselves and erasing his identity in one stroke. 

No, whether they recognized it or not, they would always hold him apart: it was the way of the British. Laurence, for all the respect he had shown Tharkay thus far, was still an Englishman, and on foreign soil even Englishmen might occasionally trip into fair treatment. 

Laurence would likely even consider himself to be keeping his promise to Tharkay, when he offered him scraps from their table and expected gratitude for it: as if Tharkay should feel indebted to Laurence in perpetuity for the modicum of collegiality other men enjoyed from him as a matter of course. 

Fidelity held a different meaning to those for whom it had always been convenient to make good on their word. Tharkay knew better than to trust promises made in the dark: they would see, in Britain, what Laurence’s loyalty was worth. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laurence: omg ur sooooo brave, it's so unfair, look at ur resilience and grit, you've overcome sooooooo much  
> Tharkay: literally fuck you 
> 
> Poor sweet child Laurence doesn't know he's doing a microagression, lol. He'll learn. 
> 
> ***
> 
> One of my favorite things about this current arc is that it takes place alongside Laurence's internal journey from Insufferable White Moderate(tm) to ride-or-die ally. There are so many very specific dynamics at play between him and Tharkay that take place along one axis of oppression or another, and I love exploring how they navigate those dynamics together. 
> 
> Longer author's note to follow at the end of this arc - for now, please keep reading and commenting! 
> 
> <3


	8. Edinburgh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: heavy stuff ahead - structural and interpersonal racism, emotional trauma 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this chapter was Everything Stays feat. Olivia Olson, from the Adventure Time soundtrack, again written by the ineffable Rebecca Sugar 
> 
> Any dialogue marked with an asterisk* is lifted directly from canon, and also -- this is important -- so is any action in the accompanying scene.

#  **Edinburgh ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay makes tea**

*******

Tharkay woke into choking darkness, clawing his way out of a heavy blanket and a dream he had not had in...ten years, now. 

He was in Britain. 

He stole down to the kitchen of the town home where they had been quartered, hating that he had known just where the servants’ staircase would be. 

Making tea in a British kitchen was a ritual both grounding and jarring: Tharkay had not realized, until this very moment, that his body would remember the gestures. His hands were shaking. Of course his body had remembered -- his body remembered all of the gestures of his youth: what it had been like to move through these spaces always on edge, always on his guard. 

_ These things are here,  _ he chanted,  _ the kettle and the tea leaves and the flagstones. I am here with the kettle, I am here with the tea.  _

Abroad, he might blend in a crowd; it was not so in Britain. He was not a person, here. He was a caricature, a curio at once invisible and eye-catching -- but never recognized, never  _ seen _ in all of his facets and dimensions. 

_ These things are here,  _ he chanted,  _ the fire and the trestle table, the mug and the water. I am here at the tabl e with this mug and this kettle.  _

Would the aviators claim him? Nobody had ever claimed him. 

_ These things are here,  _ he chanted, _ the braided garlic in the corner, and the..the--I am here. I am here--I am here with the tea, and the, the garlic--the mug--  _

They would not claim him. 

They would not claim him. 

What they would offer him, what they called fellowship -- what they intended -- would be so wholly divergent from the impact of their actions on his person that it would render their benevolent intent irrelevant. 

They would not claim him, not really. 

_ I am not of your company, _ he had told Laurence.  _ I am not of your company _ _,_ he had said, as he taught Roland knife tricks and read stories to Temeraire and brought a pack of dragons to their rescue.  _ You are not of their company, _ he had kept repeating to himself, as if that would somehow diminish how much he  _ cared. _

He had been tired, so tired, of forever holding himself apart. 

And now he had gone and put them in a position to truly hurt him, to do the kind of damage that could only be done by trusted comrades, just as it had been before. 

_ These things are here. _ He chanted and breathed.  _ Steaming tea, heavy mug, warm hands. _

Promises in the dark. 

He climbed out of the kitchen, seeking the light of morning. 

  
  
  
  
  


The air was a little less stuffy upstairs; as he walked the entrance hall Tharkay did his best to think clearly and assess his situation as it stood. Was he safer now, than he had been before? Did he have any more tools at his disposal?  __

He could rely on his lawyers, he knew -- a set of particularly fair-haired Goldsmid and Rothschild cousins who had changed their names and hidden the connection, the better to serve their network’s interests as barristers. He was sure he could prevail upon them, if necessary, to do as they had a dozen years ago and secure him passage to Istanbul via the kin web across Europe of Jewish families both open and secret. 

Of the humans in Britain, his lawyers were the only ones of whom he was certain, the only ones he could trust: they alone knew what it meant to be hunted in one’s own country. 

And of course, he had the pack. Even if Arkady were seduced by the Empire’s promises of riches and cattle -- and Tharkay would not blame him if he were:  _ aa’AAArrrrrrrcq  _ \-- he thought that Gherni at least would carry him across the Channel. 

These were the only circumstances under which he would have ever set foot in Britain: at the head of a pack of twenty feral dragons with whom only he and Temeraire could communicate, and with a certain escape route against the day things inevitably fell apart. He was marginally safer now than he had been as a youth of eighteen, yes; but he could never call himself truly  _ safe _ , not here. He had to fend for himself, in Britain. 

Making sure to leave the front door open behind him, Tharkay emerged onto the stoop and huddled on the top step. 

The damp chill in the air, the cobblestones -- even the architecture: it was all so familiar, insidiously comforting, threatening to lull him into complacency. He was  _ at home  _ here, and that was the deepest cut of all: that he could never relax his guard; he would never be at ease, here in his own home. 

It was the same, just the same, as it ever had been. How could he have thought it might be  _ different _ , that somehow building his mental reserves would alleviate the crushing weight of the psychic toll this environment took on him? 

He could not drink his tea. He could not allow himself to think his thoughts or feel his feelings. He flew away, across the square and up over the clock tower, and did not come back until he perceived the tremor of Laurence’s light step on the stone behind him, and then Laurence’s presence radiating warmth beside him. Laurence did not spoil the quiet, only joined Tharkay in it; and Tharkay was glad: for he did not know how long he had been flying in the wind, but the shadows in the square had shortened. 

He looked at Laurence. “May I offer you one?” he asked, meaning the tea. “I am sure the owners would not begrudge it.”* 

“No, I must go up,”* said Laurence, indicating the castle. Of course Laurence would immediately be called into the chambers of the highest echelons of power. 

Laurence was looking out over the square at the dragons sprawled among the houses, his mouth drawn in a thin line. Tharkay could see the thoughts in his head:  _ oh, how unfairly the dragons are being treated, someone really ought to do something ab out it.  _

“You need not worry,” said Tharkay. “I am sure they will fend for themselves.”* He did not say:  _ I will fend for my self.  _

Instead, he passed Laurence his tea -- one of them should enjoy it before it went cold -- and stared at the building across the square. 

He was seven, and he had lately arrived to Britain; he did not know yet that he was different, but the other boys were looking at him and pulling at the corners of their eyes. 

He was twelve, and he had tried so hard -- he had read all of the books and written and rewritten and rewritten his compositions -- and he still was not invited to tea in the headmaster’s parlour. 

He was eighteen, and his hands and feet were too big for his body; and here, right here upon this very spot _ , _ the Court was denying him the right to his father’s name. 

He felt a nudge at his elbow: Laurence was giving the mug back. He accepted it. It was a shell in his hands, empty of tea and warmth. 

“Are you well?”* asked Laurence, and Tharkay did not say:  _ no, never, not here.  _

Instead he said, managing a trace of his usual dry tone, “Oh, very; I am quite at home. It is some time since I was last in Britain, but I was tolerably familiar with the Court of Session, then.”* He looked across the square again. He could not stop looking at it. 

“I hope,”* began Laurence; and Tharkay flew away and did not come back until some distant part of him heard, “I would gladly speak to Admiral Lenton at Dover, if you would not object.”* He was yanked back into himself by Laurence’s audacity, by the sheer brazenness of his careless assurance. 

He did not know how to deal with the wave of spite and rage that swamped him then: he needed Laurence to leave  _ immediately;_ else Tharkay might break the heavy mug on his pretty face. 

He did not say, he could not say:  _ I offered you my cup; you drained it and handed it back to me empty; and now you dare make me a promise, here at the very site of my betrayal?  _

Because despite his long years of experience, Tharkay could not help but -- not hope, precisely, but perhaps humour his curiosity, and allow himself to entertain for a moment the idea that it could be true, that Laurence really would do as he had promised -- and wonder whether that was how it felt, to be recognized on the merit of one’s service. A tug at his chest, an unmistakable gravity toward winning the approval of one who had shown him respect and recognition, a budding desire to prove himself -- was that how Laurence felt  _ all the time _ _?_

No, he could not allow it. Loyalty to Temeraire was one thing; loyalty to Laurence was quite another. He was damned either way: if Laurence kept his promise, he would consider Tharkay beholden to him; and when he did not, Tharkay would again be left to fend for himself in a country where his very personhood was a question to be raised in polite debates. 

Tharkay had come back to a Britain who had never claimed him, whose government _still_ would not openly claim him but _would_ pay him to spy for them, as if he were a shameful secret -- oh, he was good enough to _serve_ them; his work was _invaluable,_ they said; but still somehow he himself had never merited better treatment -- no, he would never again be taken in by an Englishman making a promise. 

He remembered promises of all kinds from his father’s friends and acquaintances, assurances that he would always be taken care of, that he would want for nothing. Christ, he remembered those same promises from his own family: people who had told him that they loved him; people who had perhaps even convinced themselves of it. People he himself had loved with a child’s abandon: without condition. 

And he remembered their expressions when he’d finally put aside his pride and asked for help, and they each and every one kindly explained to him exactly how much they regretted that they must abandon him in his hour of need, as if it were not an intentional choice on their parts; and asked him to absolve them of their betrayal even as they committed it. 

No, Laurence’s offer to speak to Admiral Lenton did not bring him ease, only opened another wound. He could not put any faith in Laurence’s word, not here, of all places; he could not give Laurence that kind of power over him. He wished the British would stop  _ promising  _ him things. He wished they would stop offering him cups from their poisoned well. 

Tharkay turned back to Laurence, expression flat, and did not say:  _ what will make you leave me be?  _

He said, “Your messenger grows anxious.”*

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tharkay: *dissociating* *safety planning*  
> Laurence: hey i got u bro don’t even worry about it, matter of fact i’m about to go talk to my guy right now, i swear, no seriously  
> Tharkay: **safety planning i n t e n s i f i e s** 
> 
> *** 
> 
> No content notes for this chapter but a quick note on updates and process: I have fully written rough drafts of both this fic and its sequel, which will take us up to League of Dragons and a little after. 
> 
> Now, let’s be clear about what that means: you know the lil’ scenes at the top of the Author’s Notes up there? Yeah, those are *slightly edited* excerpts from my so-called “drafts.” So when I say I have "fully written rough drafts," please know that there is a Google Doc somewhere on the internet with 100+ pages of *points above* THAT, plotted out beat for beat through the entire series, interspersed with the lines of canon dialogue I want to weave in. 
> 
> I don’t start posting chapters from an arc until I have managed to at least halfway turn ALL of those beats into sentences for every chapter in that arc. 
> 
> Which is all to say: I’m updating quickly because this fic starts off too absolutely devastating for me to do otherwise, and because I can’t leave our boys hanging halfway through a narrative arc -- that’s too cruel. 
> 
> But I’m also updating on a not-quite-regular schedule because making my beats into sentences takes...some doing, lol. 
> 
> All my gratitude to those who are reading and engaging. Next chapter will be the end of this arc, with some of my thoughts in the notes.
> 
> <3 <3 <3 <3


	9. Dover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woohoo hey! it's an updated author's note at the end of the chapter! 
> 
> as always, any dialogue marked with an asterisk* is lifted directly from canon. there are also callbacks to canon lines that have previously been starred--they're not starred the second time around. 
> 
> the song I had on repeat while editing this chapter was Overkill by Colin Hay because I watched a lot of Scrubs during some very formative years of my life :D

#  **Dover ;** ****

**or,** ****

**Tharkay declines an offer**

*******

Tharkay reported to Admiral Jane Roland, and was not sure whether he was glad of it. 

Her sex was not the issue -- the woman officers were the worst-kept secret in His Majesty’s Service -- rather it was her manner which unbalanced him. 

When he had appeared in her doorway, she’d looked up, and recognizing him motioned him inside, and then said to her runner, “Go and find the -- yes, and those other things too -- ” upon which the child scurried away, having apparently understood this command. 

As he entered the room, the Admiral stood and came around her desk, extending her hand to him. “Well met, sir, well met indeed,” she said, and Tharkay could not but meet her handshake. Her grip was strong, stronger than almost any he had encountered: it was clear whose mother she was. 

He did not know how to respond to an Admiral who shook his hand, and so he said, “Arkady and the rest of the pack have settled in.” 

“Excellent,” she said, and turned to beckon to her runner, who had reappeared. She said to Tharkay, “We had to guess at your measurements, but you look to be about the same size as Barnesby, so we’ve scrounged one of his up from somewhere -- he won’t miss it, poor lad, grounded as he is --” 

“I beg your pardon, Admiral,” said Tharkay, frozen in place. “I do not catch your meaning.”

“Well, obviously Laurence wrote me of you so I had  _ some _ notice of your brilliance, but then you show up at our doorstep with two dozen feral dragons at precisely the time we most need them, carrying thousands of men -- ha! I knew we must snap you up before those bastards in Government snatched you back -- ‘essential in the field’ indeed -- so,” and then she took a green coat from the hands of her runner and held it out to him. 

Tharkay looked at the coat for a long moment before he understood that she was in fact  _ offering him a commission.  _ Just like that, as if it were a matter of course. 

Tharkay looked at the Admiral, and he did not know what she might have read in his expression, but she smiled a little, and seemed to change tack. “Laurence is insensible sometimes, isn’t he, to just how extraordinary he is: when presented with a fact which contradicts his belief, he revises his belief rather than the fact.

“The poor dear fellow nearly choked when he drank to my promotion, but he managed to get the toast out all the same, and he’ll never do anything which is not absolutely correct according to his understanding. It’s sweet, how truly he believes in chivalry and duty and honor, all of the empty words these men always spout but never respect.” 

Tharkay only nodded; he could do naught but agree. The Admiral thrust the coat into his grasp as she crossed the room to stare out the window; Tharkay said nothing. After a while the Admiral seemed to make a decision, and turned back to him. 

“I trust Laurence, and I trust what Emily has told me of you, and having made your acquaintance only a few hours ago still I trust the clear evidence before me that you would make as capable an officer and commander as any person I have known. 

“Therefore I will say this to you, from one who is familiar with that particular brand of self-doubt which comes from being the only one of your kind.” The Admiral strode over to stand directly before him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and looked him in the eye; he could not look away. “You are as good as you know yourself to be,” she said. “You are.” 

She held him there for a moment, and then releasing him from her gaze she took the coat and began to fiddle with something near the collar. “Laurence has recognized this, and that is to his credit, yes, but he has not plucked you from obscurity or raised you up beyond your station. He has only begun to correct a very great wrong by doing that which should rightfully have been accomplished a long time since. And it is my very great pleasure to bestow this upon you now for my sake as well as yours, because your first orders will be to go right back to those mountains and conjure up some more dragons for us.” And so saying, she handed him the coat once more, and Tharkay saw that she had pinned on a set of gold bars. 

“Now, to your quarters -- yes, quarters, did you think that Laurence would shirk his responsibility to a guest, or one of his men? You are quartered with the other officers, here, Fletcher will show you--” and ringing for her runner, who promptly appeared at the door, she dismissed Tharkay for the evening. 

Tharkay could not process any part of what had just occurred; he clutched the coat and flew up and away, observing the layout of the building, the moulding on the ceiling; allowing his body to follow the runner out the door, and was not recalled back to himself until he heard his name called by the newly promoted Captain Granby. 

“Tharkay!” he said, catching up to him, “Have you been shown your quarters yet?” 

“Even as we speak,” said Tharkay. 

Granby held out his hand. “I hear you have been commissioned to summon some more ferals for us -- in sooth I cannot say I congratulate you, for these are dire times, but I am glad of it.” 

“The congratulations are yours, Captain,” Tharkay managed, shaking the fourth hand offered to him by one of the British in fifteen years, “for a promotion well-deserved.” 

“Yes, well,” said Granby with a glance over his shoulder at another captain, who was waiting for him with two bottles in each hand, “I don’t rightly know whether to celebrate or mourn, things being so topsy-turvy.” 

“Likely a measure of both,” Tharkay offered.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” said Granby, and then shared another look with the other captain, and turning back to Tharkay he asked lightly, “I don’t suppose you’d care to join us?” 

It was a perfectly innocent invitation, but Granby was looking at Tharkay with particular intent, and Tharkay knew exactly what would happen if he joined them for that drink. 

“Another time, perhaps,” he said with a brief smile, and maintained his composure long enough to make it to his quarters.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He sat down hard on the bed, then lay back. The bedding smelled of woodsmoke. The quilt had a pattern, though he did not know its name. 

His mind observed the details of the room: spare by English standards. Here was the bed. There was an armoire and a writing desk, and there a table and chairs before the hearth.

_ These things are true _ , he told himself. The Admiral had shaken his hand and offered him a commission. The furniture was made of oak. Laurence had written of him to the Admiral. 

These things were true: a fire was laid in the hearth and more wood stacked nearby; they had expected him. His body breathed. He held a green coat. 

In one conversation, just like that, his world had shifted on its axis; and though it was for the better, at this moment Tharkay’s denial and urge to flee were welling up in his throat, choking his thoughts, flooding out all else. 

His station in Britain had improved significantly, true, and yet it came at the cost of ties which bound him to the aviators, to the Admiral and to Laurence. 

And though some in Whitehall would certainly be delighted, for it could only help maintain his cover to have accepted a commission from Admiral Jane Roland, of all people, he was conscious that there were those in Government who would rather not see him returned to Britain on any terms, much less with any level of recognition or acclaim. 

These things were true: there was a pitcher of water on the table. His green coat had a pair of gold bars. Loyalty, precious though it was, could be a chain. 

Just as well that he would not be here long, then. He would pack his green coat with its gold bars and depart at dawn, back to the mountains where if conditions were inhospitable, they at least made sense. 

And then he remembered, or realized, and -- “Oh, fuck,” he said aloud, coming back into himself, “I suppose I must speak to him.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Pray come in,” said Laurence, opening his door to Tharkay. “I hope you will forgive my state.”* He was in a dressing gown. A  _ dressing gown. _

“I am come to say good-bye -- no, I have nothing to complain of; but I am not of your company,” said Tharkay once inside, reminding himself as well as Laurence. “I do not care to stay only to be a translator; it is a role which must soon pall.”* 

“I would be happy to speak to Admiral Roland,” said Laurence, “-- perhaps a commission --”* 

“I have already spoken to her, and have been given one, if not the sort you mean; I will go back to Turkestan and bring back more ferals, if any can be persuaded into your service on similar terms,”* said Tharkay, cutting him short. This time he allowed himself to feel a certain amount of that budding swell of loyalty to Laurence, dear Laurence, who only deserved it because he did not assume it his due; because he had not considered himself to be doing Tharkay a favor, not in the least. 

“I will pray for your safe return,”* said Laurence then, and shared his supper and his port, and together they sat and watched the fire. 

It was a relief, Tharkay realized, to sit here and be quiet with Laurence as an anchoring presence, rather than shut up in his room alone with his spinning mind. The only sounds were the scrape of knives on plates, or the crackle of the fire in the hearth, or the echoing spill when Laurence filled their glasses; and Tharkay could stare, watching the logs burn and his thoughts slowly unfurl; and allow the day’s events to wash over rather than flood him. These things were true: Laurence had invited him in; Laurence had shared his supper; Laurence had written to the Admiral -- 

Laurence had kept his word. 

When had it happened? Surely not between the rescue and evacuation; there had been no time: so it must have been that first night across the Austrian border, after the long ragged flight from Istanbul. It had been...it had been part of Laurence’s _natural course_ to write to his friends of Tharkay; it had been intrinsic to his understanding of his duty: he had considered it his honor to do so. 

And oh, the irony: that unique strength of character -- the very trait which ensured that Laurence deserved his loyalty -- likewise precluded Laurence from ever understanding why. There was nothing to say, for he could never explain; but slowly, cautiously, Tharkay allowed himself to feel the feeling of sitting before the fire together with Laurence, this time secure in the knowledge that the fellowship was real. 

After a while, Laurence broke the silence. “I suppose I cannot be sorry to see you leave.” 

Tharkay raised an eyebrow. 

“Every time you go haring-off on your own,” said Laurence, “You come back to us having marshaled resources I could never have imagined, let alone foreseen. And yet for my own selfish part, I would not see you go: I find that I value your company for its own sake; and my thoughts are easier to bear when we are sitting together just as we are, like this. 

“Therefore though I sorrow at your departure, and not least because Temeraire has likewise grown rather fond of you, still I await your return most eagerly,” he said, and he looked at Tharkay and smiled that schoolboy smile, winsome affection writ clear in his face. 

Tharkay was silent. He did not say, he could not say:  _ please stop being so good; I’m afraid I won’t be able to bear it when you let me down.  _

Instead he said, “I would say something to you, on matters as they stand between us,” and hoped Laurence would remember. 

Laurence laughed a little, then, and replied, “Very well, say what you will,” and Tharkay smiled in return, and it was nice, to share a bit of humour, to have some context to which they might harken back together; and then Tharkay spoke. 

“Even before Danzig,” he said, “You had written of me to Admiral Roland.” 

“Well, I did not know she was an Admiral, then,” said Laurence, “But yes of course; did I overstep? If so I must apologize for having presumed -- ” 

Tharkay turned his head and lifted his hand a little, and Laurence fell silent. Tharkay stared into the fire once more, marshaling his thoughts, wondering how he might say this. “That night in Istanbul, when you offered me your word, I did not credit it,” he began slowly. “Many are the Englishmen who have made me an earnest promise under cover of darkness, only for those promises to dissipate like so much mist in the light of day.” 

Laurence nodded, then. “And you had no reason to believe that I was not one of those men."

“Precisely,” said Tharkay. “And until now I have kept my word to you for Temeraire’s sake, and for the sake of my own conscience.” And then he looked Laurence in the eye, and with a trace of wonder in his voice said, “But Laurence, I tell you now that you have won a measure of my loyalty in your own right. If ever you are in need, I will help you if I can.” 

_ Because you offered me your hand and asked for mine; because you brought me into your fellowship and treated me as an equal; you were the first, and because you were the first you will not be the last: they follow your example.  _

“I am honored by it,” said Laurence softly. 

“Yes,” drawled Tharkay. Laurence smiled at that, and poured them each another glass; and together they watched the fire burn still lower in the hearth. 

Tharkay found his gaze drawn to the line of collarbone usually covered by Laurence’s neckcloth, exposed now by the too-large dressing gown he had clearly borrowed. There was no current of attraction between them tonight, not with every line of Laurence’s face etched in worry and misery, and Tharkay’s shaken equilibrium besides. But still Laurence had invited him in and shared his table -- and he had not shied away from his own feelings, even in Tharkay’s presence. Tharkay wondered whether this was how Arkady felt hunting on the wing, staring at sun-warmed gold shading to ruddy cream in the firelight, the strong line of Laurence’s neck and its softly beating pulse. 

Tharkay wanted to bite it, to tear it out: he would shake Laurence if he could, chastise him for baring his throat and making himself vulnerable like this.  _ Nobody has yet taken advantage of your goodness; that does not mean they never will, Laurence, and there are those who would exploit your loyalty for their own ends.  _ But Tharkay would not be the one to shatter Laurence’s perfect innocence; he could not even bring himself to resent him for it. 

They  _ would  _ break that proud neck, he knew, and smile as they did it, and tell him it was for his own good. But Tharkay could not voice this; he could not explain, could not avert; only watch and wait, and hope that he might be wrong this time. Even with the measure of loyalty Laurence had earned from him, it was not Tharkay’s responsibility to protect quixotic Englishmen from their own Empire. 

The fire was down to embers, and Laurence had emptied the last of the port into their cups. Tharkay took his, and did not say:  _ may no one ever break faith with you, Will Laurence; I do not know if you could survive the betrayal. _

Instead, he raised his glass and said, “To measure for measure between us.”

“And, God willing,” added Laurence, meeting his eye and toasting him back, “a long acquaintance.” 

They drank. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laurence: *vulnerability and emotional honesty*  
> Tharkay: why are you like this 
> 
> #Admiral Jane Roland is your favorite auntie who hit forty and shed the very last fuck she ever gave about men’s feelings #i relate to her so much 
> 
> *** 
> 
> Hiiiiiiii -- 
> 
> Let’s talk about how Laurence earns Tharkay’s loyalty here. 
> 
> To do that, we need to look at both of the people who “claim” Tharkay in this chapter -- that’d be Jane Roland and Laurence. They each do things that seem pretty similar -- commissioning Tharkay and recommending Tharkay for said commission -- but they’re actually pretty different in motive. 
> 
> First of all, Roland’s move is completely unprecedented -- she’s one of those allies who uses their power to Do Good and Back Up Her People. When Laurence recommends Tharkay for a commission, she’s like “yup that sounds right” because she is fucking solid and recognizes that Tharkay is clearly a badass. 
> 
> And her response to hearing about his freakish competence is… to *acquire* him, to put herself in a position of power over him. Offer him a set of golden handcuffs. She gives him a well-deserved boost up, and she’s really excited to do it, AND -- she demands his loyalty and obedience in return, because now she’s his superior officer. Now he has to follow her orders; now he’s HER freakishly competent badass. That commission comes with strings attached. 
> 
> Let’s contrast her move with this piece of Laurence’s internal monologue from page 143 of Black Powder War -- this is when Laurence is trying to persuade Temeraire to...not be Disruptive to England or the War Effort when he Asks Politely for his Rights? (lol INSUFFERABLE WHITE MODERATE™) 
> 
> “Consideration for Granby was not an argument which could be made to Temeraire himself, of course, being a wholly unfair sort of pressure. On Laurence, however, it weighed heavily; he had been himself the beneficiary of a great deal of influence in his naval service, much of it even earned by merit, and he considered it a point of honor to do properly by his own officers.”* 
> 
> So when Laurence writes to Roland like “hey there’s this guy, we should commission him or something if we can because he deserves way better than what he’s getting and i’m in a position to help him out,” he does it because… that’s just like… the person he is. Like he’s just doing what others have done for him in the past, he’s paying it forward, except that NOBODY HAS EVER INCLUDED THARKAY IN THIS SORT OF PAY-IT-FORWARD HELP-EACH-OTHER-OUT TYPE OF FELLOWSHIP BEFORE. Laurence isn’t doing it to like, *have something over* Tharkay, he’s not doing it because it’s a FAVOR, he’s doing it because he literally just sees this as his NATURAL DUTY, like, wake up, wipe my ass, check on Temeraire, recommend Tharkay for a commission, teach Roland trigonometry, fold my clothes perfectly, shine my boots and go to sleep NATURAL DUTY. 
> 
> (Tharkay, at this very moment in time: *head exploding* WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKKKKKKK) 
> 
> In sum: Jane Roland wants to claim Tharkay because he’s useful to her, and as a result she positions herself as his superior, and she DEMANDS his loyalty. LAURENCE claims Tharkay because he...considers it an honor to do so? And he...positions Tharkay as his equal?? And he ASKS FOR NOTHING IN RETURN?????????? 
> 
> That’s how Laurence earns his first *real* measure of Tharkay’s loyalty. Wheeeeee, so cuuuuuute, go Laurence ! Go Tharkay! Hooray for mutual loyalty and trust! 
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***


	10. Samarkand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on a scale from 0 to Edinburgh, this chapter is ~2. enjoy! 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this one was I Like That by Janelle Monae, for reasons which will hopefully become apparent upon reading. 
> 
> Pretty sure there’s no quoted canon dialogue or action but if there is, it’s marked with an asterisk*

#  **Samarkand ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay briefly lets his hair down**

*******

Tharkay woke first -- he always did -- and spent a long time flying up near what he knew to be a beautifully painted ceiling, though he could not quite make out its rich colors: the sun had not yet risen. He was in Samarkand, having left Gherni to supervise the pack of dragons they had together managed to recruit; Tharkay had needed to resupply, and spending the night in the city afforded him a chance to seek connection here outside of Britain, where he might let his guard down a little. 

These things were true: the bed was rather comfortable; his companion had been very generous; and their tryst had been _most_ nourishing -- they nearly always were, these days, now that Tharkay had learned how to seek out the right partners. 

In the past he had engaged in no shortage of carnal diversions with persons who believed themselves to be above him by virtue of race or rank or some other arbitrary trait; those encounters had often begun with the dreaded “I’ve never been with a--” and had somehow never failed to end with Tharkay feeling degraded and humiliated come morning. He had not understood why, not for a long time, until by and by he had come to recognize the commonality across those experiences: that _his_ pleasure never seemed to signify to those partners; as if he were to them a thing to be used, an exotic fetish. 

Tharkay sat up and began to comb his fingers through his hair, working out enough of the larger snarls to braid it back from his face: it grew heavier by the day. 

Granby had certainly meant his offer back at the Dover covert in good faith, true, but the worst injuries were always done by those with no intent of malice, for they left no space _at all_ for his thoughts or feelings: at least he was noticed by those who would purposely do him harm. What had he said to Laurence, that night in Istanbul? _I would rather provoke a little open suspicion, freely expressed, than meekly endure endless slights and whispers not quite hidden behind my back._

Despite the respect shown him by Laurence and the Admiral -- unprecedented, true -- Britain itself had not changed: the unacknowledged miasma of superiority saturating the very air itself was exhausting to his spirit, and he had been glad to escape it. 

Birdsong told him it was time to move; Tharkay eased himself out of bed and went to collect his clothes. In Istanbul it was Kurds and Greeks, Armenians and Egyptians; here in Samarkand it was Thibetans and Uygurs, Badakhshanis and Tajiks. It did not signify whence originated the yoke of empire; in Tharkay’s experience, the kinship of the colonized transcended nationality or tribe. 

A clear gaze, a glance held from across a fire -- these gestures were understood across any barrier of language, culture, or race. Then the approach: the drink or pipe shared one from the other, the lingering touches and gradual reduction of space between; finally, the suggestion to adjourn. 

These fleeting connections were no less authentic for their brevity. No matter the apparent sex of his partner -- whether he found an engorged member hiding beneath soft skirts, a bud and folds concealed by loosely laced trousers, or really any physical configuration he might encounter, truth be told -- Tharkay was happy to settle himself between warm brown thighs and be pleasured in return: there he could almost lose himself in the feeling of shared bodily joy, in defiance of upbringings and empires which would see them all mired in self-hatred.

His liaisons anchored him to himself, reminded him that the world was richer and more varied than the absurd strictures of the British aristocracy, reminded him that he was a part of humanity: visible and desirable, if not always entirely knowable, to those around him not afflicted with the disease of colonizers. 

Having dressed himself, Tharkay went to the corner where he’d stacked his supplies the night before; he was already packed, and now he shouldered the weight. 

Every once in a great while he felt a pang at these moments of parting: somehow he still could not shake the childish wish to be seen and known, witnessed and understood; connected to someone who saw his _full_ self and not just whichever of them he’d chanced to put on at that moment. Honesty given in the security of a single night was not intimacy; it could never replace the depth of relation which came from familiarity with a person’s history and circumstance, their temperament and character. 

Yes, Tharkay had examined his heart; had dissected and analyzed each of its currents and shoals and eddies; and he had come to a foreseeable and yet unanticipated conclusion: he was... lonely. 

But no time for that; sunrise was coming. Tharkay was on the point of leaving, but his companion from the night before -- clearly a fellow métis, though of which races Tharkay would never be so rude as to try to guess -- had begun to stir. 

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” Tharkay said quietly, one of the first phrases he learned in any language he chanced to come across. “I hope I have not disturbed you.” 

A musical voice issued from the nest of blankets: “No, but pray come here for a moment.” 

Tharkay smiled and allowed himself to indulge in a long farewell kiss, gently caressing full wide lips with his. “Pleasant dreams.” 

A blanket pulled up over a smooth dark shoulder, rolling over to slip back into sleep; Tharkay stepped back, stepped away, and stepped out into the morning, silent as the dawn.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tharkay: *hits blunt* FINALLY i get to hang out with some COLORED PEOPLE 
> 
> ***
> 
> if you’ve never had the experience of going from an oppressive space to one where you’re in community, let me tell you: it’s the emotional/psychic equivalent of getting home and taking off the world’s tightest pair of pants after the longest most stressful day of your life. 
> 
> also, if you’ve ever found yourself on the other side of the situation Tharkay describes above (“I’ve never been with a…”), I offer the following, from someone who has been on both: 
> 
> (probably most of us have been on both at some point, that’s the deal with how axes of oppression intersect, it’s a whole thing y'all) 
> 
> 1\. It’s okay. Thoughts happen. Brains think all kinds of bullshit; we can’t help our programming. My brain spouts nonsense at me all the time. The fact that you had the thought itself is value-neutral. 
> 
> 2\. Under no circumstances should you EVER communicate that thought to the person(s) you’re currently doing/about to do sexy things with. From their side, it is the worst thing to possibly hear right then: that your maybe-sex partner sees you as no more than a category in that vulnerable moment, and not in the fullness of your individual self. 
> 
> 3\. I encourage you to reframe that thought as: “I’ve never been with YOU before.” 
> 
> 4\. You PROBABLY SHOULDN’T VERBALIZE THAT ONE EITHER. 
> 
> 5\. But like... maybe think about what it means that you are here with THIS person, at this moment. Do your best to be present. Think about what they’re feeling, all of the things that make them up as a unique human, all of the things that brought you both here and why they’ve chosen to be here with you right now; and then use that knowledge to think about how you can make them feel good: that’s what sexy times are for, ideally. (Eventually Tharkay and Laurence will figure that out too, I promise.) 
> 
> I’ll post the rest of this arc over the next couple days. Please keep reading and responding! It’s very validating for me to hear that others are seeing various facets of their experiences reflected here. 
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***


	11. The Channel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We needed some Laurence POV for context and also just. because. (aa’AAAArrrrrcq.) I love him so much. 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this one was Alfie Boe’s version of Bring Him Home from Les Miserables because obviously I was a high school thespian, lol. 
> 
> This takes place during Empire of Ivory; the italicized and asterisked* section below is quoted directly from Black Powder War.

#  **The Channel ;**

**or,**

**Laurence dozes off**

***

He knew this dream. 

It was _the old familiar night-terror: finding himself utterly alone on the deck of the Belize, his first command, in a gale; all the ocean lit up by lightning-flashes and not a human face anywhere in sight; with…a dragon egg rolling ponderously towards the open forward hatch, too far for him to reach in time: not the green-speckled red of the Kazilik egg, but the pale porcelain of Temeraire’s.*_

He had had this one enough times by now that the fear did not lance through him as it once had. He could breathe through it -- the egg would not fall into the hatch. This was a dream. 

And then -- the ship rolled -- Laurence’s stomach dropped in horror -- for _Tharkay_ was there -- no -- yes, yes it _was_ him, it was -- Tharkay, emerging from the hatch just as they had from the sewers of Istanbul, and he -- he -- Tharkay staggered to his feet and _reached_ , reached with both arms for Temeraire’s egg -- and caught it, yes, caught it and cradled it to his chest. 

Laurence, paralyzed with terror, could not think: the thunder crashed; the lightning blinded; the ship pitched and rolled. There were only the waves and the storm -- Laurence caught glimpses of Tharkay just barely keeping his footing as he struggled to hold on to the egg, but his dangling harness-lines, Tharkay was wearing harness-lines and -- and they were dangling… 

...and Tharkay lasted longer than Digby had, long enough for Laurence to try to -- but something caught him back; and Laurence looked for his harness and discovered that he was not latched to the deck but chained to it. 

He was chained, yes, shackled to the sinking ship; and he must strike the chains himself or watch both Tharkay and Temeraire die; but he had nothing, no tools and no _time_...

And then the deck tilted at a terrifying angle and Laurence’s stomach dropped again; he felt himself scream as Tharkay hit the deck hard, still cradling Temeraire’s egg, sliding, sliding, sliding… 

“Laurence, are you well?” asked Temeraire, and Laurence woke, yes, woke and was relieved to find that it had only been a new incarnation of an old dream; a new version of old fears. 

They had not quite reached France.

*** 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> our poor dear sweet Laurence is having a real bad time while Tharkay is off chillin in the mountains smoking weed and living his best life, lol 
> 
> #Tharkay is a stoner don’t @ me 
> 
> *** 
> 
> Ok also real quick, here’s an actual rundown of my writing process: 
> 
> nb*** (turns a line of greentext into a sentence): hey that’s pretty good  
> nb***: …  
> nb***: did i write that  
> nb***: or is that from canon  
> nb***: …  
> nb***: nahhhhh, i feel like i’d remember if it were from canon... right?  
> nb***: i mean probably  
> nb***: ...but  
> nb***: is it from someone else’s fic???????????  
> nb***: …  
> nb***: ...or has it just been bouncing around my head for so long that it feels like i’ve already read it somewhere  
> nb***: or has it been bouncing my head for so long BECAUSE IT’S FROM SOMEONE ELSE’S FIC???  
> nb***:... ???  
> nb*** (with confidence): i’ll remember to check later. 
> 
> Reader, they+he+she did NOT remember to check later. 
> 
> Which is to say: if you recognize any of the phrases in this fic, either from canon or from someone else's, I hope you will understand that it is because I have read those words so many times that they have become part of my own internal narrative, and I have by now forgotten their provenance. Please, forgive my accidental plagiarism.
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***
> 
> edited to add: should I keep doing those whole-ass author's notes? because i kinda feel like i’m shouting into the void but also it feels kinda irresponsible of me to put this super intense heavy stuff out there and then not like, process or address it after? but it's also so deeply personal that i actually feel really insecure about sharing in the notes? idk, does it add to the experience of the fic? Let me knowwwwww


	12. Bristol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’re gonna wanna shake yourself vigorously and make sure that all lies well before you proceed.
> 
> Canon dialogue is starred* and any action in those scenes is also canon 
> 
> s/o to T-Rex and songoftheskies: the note at the end of this chapter is dedicated to you. 
> 
> The song I had on repeat for this one was Evan Rachel Wood singing Black Bird by the Beatles -- pretty sure this version is from the Across the Universe soundtrack.
> 
> The new edition of the Author's Note at the end of this chapter is dedicated to my dad -- my dad : me :: Laurence : Temeraire.

#  **Bristol ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay takes a stroll**

*******

Laurence had chosen Temeraire _._

These things were true: the port admiral was babbling, yes, babbling and casting a nervous glance every now and then at the kestrel perched ‘twixt the double bars on Tharkay’s shoulder; and Tharkay was staring out the window at a burning harbor; and when faced with the choice between Temeraire and the orders of the British Empire, Laurence had chosen _Temeraire._

  
  
  
  


Word had already spread by the time Tharkay made it back to Britain with Gherni and the new recruits. 

He reported to Admiral Roland; she immediately waved him in to sit at her desk and did not speak, only produced a bottle of gin and poured them each a healthy measure. 

“Stubborn wretch,” she said, and drank. 

Tharkay raised his glass to that. The gin tasted of juniper, yes, and also pine and rose. 

“And of course,” said Admiral Roland, “Of _course_ he’s come back to martyr himself.” 

Tharkay drank again, and did not say: _aaaaa’AArrrrRRRrrrrRRRRrrrcq._

“You and I both know that there are other ways it could have been done,” said Admiral Roland with a sidelong glance at him. “Especially now we’ve even more of those ferals recruited to our cause…” She shook her head and trailed off, staring into her glass; Tharkay knew then what her plan had been. He sipped his gin. 

“I do not know if I can forgive him,” said Admiral Roland, shaking herself back to the present. “For the doing, perhaps, but not the method, nor that--that blasted _letter_.” She looked at Tharkay sidelong again. 

Tharkay ruefully acknowledged her point, raising his glass and his eyebrows, and did not pretend that he had not read the letter: another thing they both knew. He drank. 

Laurence had written a great many letters, it seemed, for Tharkay had received word from his bewildered lawyers that there had lately been a testimony submitted to the Court on his behalf, of all things. Tharkay had been amused, yes, amused and not a little touched that Laurence had thought of him, in his methodical way, when setting his affairs in order. 

“Were it anyone else…” the admiral did not finish the thought; Tharkay knew the end of that sentence nevertheless. She heaved a sigh and tossed back the rest of her gin. “But I would not see him die.” 

She took something from her desk then; and offering it to Tharkay said, “Godspeed, Captain.” In her right hand she held another pair of gold bars and signed orders to retrieve Laurence from his prison; and in her left, an empty cup. 

These things were true: Admiral Jane Roland cared deeply about Laurence yes, and about the dragons and the war; Admiral Jane Roland truly respected Tharkay's abilities, had equipped him for this mission with rank beyond his wildest expectations; and Admiral Jane Roland would have ordered Tharkay to bring the cure to France in secret, yes, and had he been caught, she would have let him hang. 

  
  
  


With some effort Tharkay brought his awareness back to the present: the port admiral was _still_ talking; and by and by Tharkay came to realize the man was explaining that he actually had no idea where his prisoner was being kept. 

Laurence, dear Laurence, had chosen Temeraire; and Temeraire deserved far better than a captain who would go to slaughter for love of an Empire that had not even bothered to remember which midden they’d tossed him into. 

“You must excuse me,” Tharkay said, and tugged his orders from the port admiral’s grasp. 

  
  
  


*** 

  
  


The streets of Bristol were burning. 

Tharkay let the kestrel fly and followed her up, opening his senses and spreading his awareness wide, waiting for any sign, any disruption in the pattern… 

“--not risking my neck for no fucking traitor--” 

Tharkay had the man against the nearest wall before the end of the sentence. “Where is he?” 

The Marine spluttered. 

“The post you _abandoned,”_ said Tharkay, and could not help shaking him a little. “The traitor. Where is he?” 

“Who--” said the Marine, and stopped, for Tharkay had laid a knife against his cheek. 

“You will tell me where he is.” His voice was edged in diamond. 

The man stammered out a few directions, some details about the building and a general heading; and Tharkay walked on without another glance. 

  
  


***

  
  


When he found the house he immediately went for the stairs: they would be keeping him in the attic. Tharkay hated that he knew just where the servants’ staircase would be. 

Laurence had chosen Temeraire. He had chosen Temeraire, and together they had used their power to prevent _genocide;_ and then, oh, then Laurence and Temeraire had come back to Britain and thrown it in their faces, exposing their ugly truths and confronting them with their own hypocrisy: forcing them to openly admit that all of their pretty laws and ideals were malleable against the interests of His Majesty’s Government.

Laurence had chosen Temeraire, and in so doing had damned himself in his own mind: to him, duty to the Empire was the highest possible honor; and having betrayed his duty as he saw it Laurence was sure to have dealt his own conscience a grievous blow; for Laurence had _truly believed_ that his honor hung on the Empire’s word: he had clung to it. 

Laurence, dear Laurence, had chosen Temeraire; and then he had come back to Britain to let them hang him for it because he yet believed that his life did not matter for its own sake, no, only in service to the Empire. 

At the top of the stairs was a long hallway with a door at the end. Tharkay walked on. 

He was five, and they would not allow him outside without a parasol. He just wanted to feel the sun on his face. 

He was eight, and his father was lecturing him: perhaps the other boys would be nicer if only he would _behave._

He was twenty, and the intelligence officer was promising him that if he completed this mission in service to his country, he would find the Court much more amenable to his suit, back home. 

He was a man past thirty, and Tharkay was not coming to Temeraire’s rescue this time. Temeraire would not realize what it meant that Laurence had chosen him, because Temeraire had always loved Laurence more than he loved Britain. Temeraire did not need Tharkay to rescue him: _Laurence_ did. 

Tharkay opened the door. 

It hadn’t even been locked. Laurence was at the window, a silhouette limned in red and gold from the flames below. The line of his neck sloped toward the floor. 

Tharkay looked at Laurence, dear Laurence, and donned his politest smile. “I hope I find you in good health,” he drawled in cut crystal. “Will you come with me? I believe there is still a danger of fire.”* 

It was as it had been in Istanbul: Laurence followed without dispute, and Tharkay led him out. 

  
  


***

  
  


Gherni used the thin excuse of the French patrol to go to ground and refuse to take to the air again until after dark. When they had found cover, Tharkay let Laurence walk off on his own a little ways to stand at the edge of the copse. Gherni curled up on the ground, and Tharkay stretched out on her back, leaving one leg dangling over her side: their preferred sleeping position these days. 

“Thank you,” he murmured to her in Durzagh. 

She gave a soft trill, brought the end of her tail up to wrap around his calf, and went to sleep. 

Tharkay did not sleep. He pulled his knife and whetstone from his pocket and studied the line of Laurence’s back, bent now in shame and guilt. Tharkay knew this pain, knew it intimately. There was no avoiding it; no bringing Laurence out of it: Laurence must carry himself _through_ it. 

And yet Tharkay had been here before and had found his own way through, though not without suffering and mistakes, awful mistakes; and not so very long ago he had said to Laurence: _if ever you are in need, I will help you if I can._ He honed his blade and smelt jasmine, yes, jasmine and salt wind and woodsmoke. 

Measure for measure, that had been their toast, measure for measure and a long acquaintance. Tharkay would not go back on his word -- of course he must do this for Laurence, who alone among his peers had bucked the yoke of empire and spoken out against evil; there was no one else who could. 

When he judged enough time to have passed, Tharkay put his things away and slid from Gherni’s back. He went to stand beside Laurence, silent as the dawn, and thought for no little while about all of the things he might say: even a minute error in this crucial moment would send Laurence thousands of leagues in the wrong direction. 

He took a breath, then cut the silence with a voice like his knife: “I might never have found you, of course.”* 

Laurence, poor child, did not immediately refuse: his face reflected wretched indecision. 

“My idea of duty is not yours. But I know of no reason why you owe it to any man to die, to no purpose,”* said Tharkay. He did not say: _they betrayed you first, Laurence; they broke faith with you._

“Honor is sufficient purpose,”* Laurence ground out, and Tharkay answered smoothly. 

“Very well, if your death would preserve it better than your life. But the world is not yet quite ranged all between Britain and Napoleon, and you do not need to choose between them or die. You would be welcome, and Temeraire, in other parts of the world. You may recall there is at least a semblance of civilization in some few places, beyond the borders of England.”* _There are options beyond the binaries they offer us, Laurence, I promise._

“I do not--I will not pretend that I do not consider it, for Temeraire’s sake if not my own. But to fly would be to make myself truly a traitor,”* said Laurence bitterly. 

Tharkay would not, could not allow Laurence to sacrifice his life for the sake of an epithet; and so he fixed him with a raptor’s pitiless gaze and said only the bare truth: “Laurence, you are a traitor.” Tharkay did not blame him for it, no; but neither did he let him escape it: he pinned Laurence in it with his eyes, making him sit with the discomfort. “Allowing them to put you to death for it may be a form of apology, but it does not make you less guilty.”* 

_These things are true, Laurence,_ Tharkay said into Laurence’s eyes. _You chose Temeraire; you are a traitor to the Empire; you acted with honor. All of these things are true._

To his credit, Laurence did not shy away -- Tharkay saw it strike him, watched Laurence’s head jerk back, watched him absorb the impact and acknowledge the weight of it, the burden; and then oh, yes -- then Laurence met Tharkay’s unwavering stare. After Tharkay had taken a breath or two something like harmony rose in their shared gaze -- not a wave, not a current, barely even a ripple, but it was enough. Tharkay looked deliberately skyward, releasing Laurence from his scrutiny. Laurence exhaled. 

There was nothing more to say, after that. It was for Laurence to learn how to carry it, and that would only come with time. Enough for now that he had taken it up; enough for now that he had faced it. Tharkay could not lead him in this -- Laurence must find his own path. The voyage was not his to take; no, but he could witness, and hope that Laurence might struggle toward some sense of peace with himself rather than allow the Empire to make him their creature. He would surely fail no few times at first, for there was no other way; but he might learn, in time. 

Tharkay did not speak, no, but he stepped a little closer and stood beside Laurence a while longer, not quite touching; and together they watched the shadows of trees creep across rich brown fields under an open sky. 

When he could no longer delay, Tharkay placed a hand on Laurence’s shoulder, recalling him from his thoughts. “It is getting dark.”*

*** 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***
> 
> Roland: oh yeah my plan was 100% for you to be the fall guy, lol  
> Tharkay: *noted* 
> 
> #Gherni ships Tharkay/Laurence as hard as we do 
> 
> *** 
> 
> Oh hey look it's a new edition of the Author's Note for this chapter! 
> 
> There are some caps locked portions below, not because I’m yelling, but because I don’t want you to think I’m calm about this. I can’t afford to be calm about this. I just...I can’t be calm about this. 
> 
> Ok, so. I intentionally built the story such that all three human regulars have done a microagression at Tharkay at some point: first Granby in Macao, then Laurence in the Taklamakan, then Laurence in Danzig, (and then Granby sorta-maybe in Dover with the offer of the potentially racially traumatic threesome, but that’s a whole different author’s note, stay on topic, self, stayyyyy on topic). And in those moments the microagressions were annoying -- upsetting, even -- but fine, because a) Laurence and Granby weren’t in a position of power over Tharkay -- Tharkay had the ability to say no/deflect without repercussion #enthusiasticconsent and b) they weren’t at a crucial moment. 
> 
> And then we come to Jane Roland’s microaggression in Bristol. 
> 
> THIS is what implicit bias and cognitive dissonance looks and feels like in action from this side, y’all -- Jane is doing a microagression just like Laurence and Granby. Here’s what hers looks like: “I woulda gotten the Asian spy to do it in secret because he’s really good at this kind of work, he’s sneakyyyyy” + “I wouldn’t sign my name to these fucking orders for anybody but Laurence” = NO I WOULD NEVER LET THARKAY DIE → that’s what that is. That’s cognitive dissonance, that’s the gap right there. That doesn’t add up. THAT’S THE BLIP. 
> 
> Tharkay understands what the real outcome of that equation is because he LIVED IT - his ENTIRE family and community cast him out rather than openly claim him when it became inconvenient, remember??? What do you think all of the microaggressions he’s reliving in these chapters add up to, exactly? 
> 
> And these were people who LOVED HIM. That’s the fucked up part - they REALLY, REALLY DID LOVE HIM - but their love is a POISONED. WELL. because of the unacknowledged gaps in their thinking. It’s so fucking insidious that nobody will admit it when it’s pointed out - it scatters like cockroaches when you shine a light on it. Please, please, please believe me: when it comes to BIPOC people with white friends, trusted colleagues, family members -- the love is REAL, and that’s what hurts. Not even LOVE is enough to make most people do the hard and uncomfortable work to think about their own biases, to empathize with your experience. 
> 
> It’s a tiny gap -- but because of the power and the privilege that Jane holds -- BECAUSE she’s his commanding officer -- because this is a crucial moment -- it becomes a matter of life and death for Tharkay. 
> 
> Please, I’m telling you, I’m begging you to believe me: THAT is what it looks like, these conversations, exactly like this. MICROAGRESSIONS ARE ACTUALLY A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH because I’m telling you now if somebody doesn’t jump to your defense when it’s easy, if somebody isn’t willing to confront their own cognitive dissonance when it only requires some reflection and internal discomfort, they’re damn sure not going to do it when it would be INCONVENIENT or DETRIMENTAL, even. Or would REQUIRE THEM TO GIVE UP THEIR LIFE OR PRIVILEGE. I am telling you this because I live it. 
> 
> Jane ALREADY showed that she wasn’t willing to give up her privilege over this because SHE WANTED TO DO IT IN SECRET IN THE FIRST PLACE. IF SHE WOULDN’T DO IT FOR THE DRAGONS, WHO SHE HAS VERY GOOD REASON TO LOVE, SHE WOULD NOT OPENLY CLAIM THARKAY OVER THIS. and we KNOW she wouldn’t do it for the dragons because she DIDN’T. 
> 
> Laurence is LITERALLY THE ONLY ONE WHO DID. He was the only one who thought that justice was more important than any other priority he could possibly have. Only Laurence, and he was willing to die over it, and THAT is why Tharkay rescues him; THAT is why Laurence earns Tharkay’s loyalty -- because only Laurence was willing to give up any amount of his own privilege for someone he loves. Only Laurence. 
> 
> THAT IS THE POINT I’M MAKING HERE. 
> 
> PLEASE BELIEVE THARKAY’S AND MY LIVED EXPERIENCE OF MICROAGRESSIONS AND HOW THESE MINUTE ERRORS AT A CRUCIAL MOMENT LEAD TO OTHERWISE "GOOD" PEOPLE ENDING UP MANY THOUSANDS OF LEAGUES OFF COURSE. 
> 
> How do you think armed police officers wind up shooting Black children after a ten-second interaction? 
> 
> I can’t afford to be calm about this.


	13. Mercia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean. You know what’s coming. Are your harness-lines secure? Are your carabiners locked? Humor me and check ‘em again. 
> 
> There’s another deconstruction of my process for this arc in the author’s note at the bottom, thank you to those who responded to the last one <3 s/o to idelthoughts -- I woke up to your lovely comment, and it motivated me to post this chapter like 12 hours ahead of when I'd originally planned. 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this chapter was Change Your Mind feat. Zach Callison from the Steven Universe soundtrack, written by the inexorable Rebecca Sugar. 
> 
> Canon dialogue is marked with an asterisk*

#  **Mercia ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay politely inquires**

*******

  
  
  


“‘The prophet is without honor in his own country,’” Tharkay said aloud, and tasted bitter laughter; he was long past being gratified by having foreseen events others had never conceived.

“What?” said Arkady, slowing a bit. 

_“aaaa’AAAAAAAAAAArrrrrrrrcq,”_ said Tharkay. 

“Ah,” said Arkady, and flew on. 

He’d actually been looking forward to serving with Laurence again. Patrols had been -- well, boring, as a matter of fact, though the aviators now treated him with genuine collegiality, having all followed Laurence’s example; it was a welcome change from the treatment he had endured from them and their fellows in the past. And yet the pack was itching, itching for a fight or something to descend upon, and if he did not provide it for them soon they would do it themselves. 

The operation in London had been so _smooth_ , like clockwork, better even than with Sara -- Tharkay and Laurence could communicate now with nothing more than a glance, and sometimes not even that much -- and Laurence, dear Laurence, had jumped to Tharkay’s defense against Woolvey and the rest, even when Tharkay had not been in the room, even when the mission was at stake -- “One good man is better than a dozen of lesser ability, in such an expedition,”* he had said, and they had all fallen silent. 

And seeing Laurence with his Edith, that additional bit of context -- watching Laurence wrestle with what might have been -- it had been not a little reassuring to see that Laurence had a Sara, too. But then -- Woolvey had been shot -- and the cracks began to show. 

Yes, Tharkay had in fact come to loathe the times that he was proven right, for he was only ever confirmed in his cynicism, in his long-fought bitterness at the world. He did not want to have been right about Laurence. 

He would not allow Laurence to prove him right, in this. 

“So we’re going to go destroy things?” asked Arkady. 

“Not exactly,” said Tharkay. “Stay put when we get there. Have Gherni talk to Temeraire.” 

*** 

  
  


When the pack landed among the aviators Granby caught Tharkay’s eye; and after the furor of their arrival had subsided the two of them wandered away together out of earshot of the camp. 

“This is fucked,” said Granby, staring into the trees. 

“Yes,” said Tharkay.

“He’s taking it upon himself,” said Granby. “It’s eating him alive.” 

“Yes,” said Tharkay, and did not say: _aa’AAArrrrrcq._

“It will break him,” said Granby, ragged and desperate. “It will break us all.” 

“No,” said Tharkay, and Granby looked up with something like hope. 

“You’ll speak to him?” 

Tharkay nodded. “I’ll speak to him.” 

  
  


*** 

  
  


Maps lay on the trestle; dust hung in the air; and Laurence’s voice was devoid of feeling. “Berkley will approach from their forward direction, and you will cut off their avenue of retreat--”* 

“I beg your pardon: I prefer not,” chimed Tharkay in icy crystal. “Arkady, I am sure, will oblige, but someone else must captain him.”* 

Laurence stared.

Was it worth his effort to try? Laurence deserved the chance to understand; yes, and the opportunity to see how and when one might safely defy, particularly under the circumstances. And yet it was both dangerous and exhausting for Tharkay to step outside of his protective armor of irony and distance; dangerous and exhausting for Tharkay to risk teaching him. 

When forced to reckon with their own cognitive dissonance, Tharkay knew from experience that men tended to respond with defensive violence: would Laurence lash out at him? He did not _think_ so, but he would not know for certain until it was too late: and with his own safety in the balance. 

This, _this_ was what loyalty meant to those who had always known what it meant to be outcast: the readiness to put one’s own self and safety in jeopardy for the sake of another. Had Laurence proven himself worth the risk? 

_Measure for measure_ _,_ Tharkay thought, and had his answer. Why else would he have come? 

He spoke. 

“I regret I have not the luxury of setting aside, for a time, the veneer of civilization; I must be a little more careful. A temporary viciousness may be pardonable in a gentleman, even admirable; but it must brand _me_ forever a savage.”* Tharkay paused a moment, letting his words sink in, and could not say: _Laurence, this isn’t you,_ because he could not be sure that it _wasn’t_. 

He could only ask, not without mercy: “Laurence, what are you doing?”*

He watched the question cut across Laurence’s throat, watched it ripple through Laurence’s eyes, watched Laurence flinch away from the pain. Tharkay stayed with him; he held Laurence with his raptor’s stare and did not allow him to escape it. 

So much depended on his answer: would Tharkay be proven right in his cynicism, or would Laurence name what he had done? 

Tharkay was nine, and his grandmother was telling him that his cousins might like him better if only he would _stop talking that heathen gabble, and learn to speak properly._ He had stopped dreaming in his mother tongue, after that. 

He was twenty-one and he had taken his first life on the Empire’s orders. When he reported to his handler she had _congratulated_ him, yes, and thanked him on behalf on the Government and the Company, and told him that she saw a bright future ahead if he would just put in a few more years of service. 

He was a man past thirty, and Tharkay was watching Will Laurence realize that there was no other way but _through_ ; yes, and then suddenly he was watching Laurence make the decision to embark; and then -- oh yes, oh, _please_ \-- Tharkay bore witness as slowly, slowly, Laurence began to gather the courage to face his own failings. 

Laurence closed his eyes and took in a breath; and then opening them looked Tharkay in the eye and said, “Killing soldiers, most of whom are starving; and making them vicious, so they give us still-better excuse.”* 

Tharkay exhaled and did not say aloud: _yes, exactly._ The tide washed out between them -- Laurence had heard it nevertheless, and the understanding was sweeping him out to sea. Laurence covered his mouth with his hands and fell back against the wall to slide to the floor; Tharkay sat down beside him, their shoulders just barely brushing, and allowed his awareness to fill the room. Laurence was weeping.

These things were here: himself and Laurence, and the trestle table and the rafters, the maps of occupied Britain. 

Tharkay was ten, and he had carried the basket the whole way; and then he set up the blanket and poured the tea because they had told him he might join their excursion if he did. 

He was seventeen and he had forgotten how to speak to his other grandmother, the one who had loved him just as he was. 

He was twenty-two, and he had lost count of the people he had killed for the Empire’s profit. 

These things were true: grey morning light was slanting in through the window; and Laurence still believed the lies the Empire had told him about himself; and as a result Laurence had knowingly committed atrocities in their name. 

Tharkay looked up into the rafters and inhaled, expanding his ribs and breathing space into himself for these truths, for _all_ of these truths.

Tharkay was here; he was here with Laurence and the table and the maps drawn by others; and Laurence was beginning to traverse the same great distance Tharkay had crossed: that vast stinging desert between what the Empire would make of him and the person he knew himself to be. 

Tharkay breathed in the truths and accepted them: himself and Laurence in the grey morning light; yes, the two of them and all of their grievous mistakes. It did not come easily, but he had practiced this. 

Laurence had not. But he might yet learn, given the chance and a way to check his bearing. 

Laurence’s voice was hoarse when he broke the silence. “If you will not, what will you do?”* 

Tharkay shrugged and said, “There is work enough in the world, and little enough time.”* Laurence could not copy his maps; no, but he might have a look, to orient himself a bit.

“And no-one to decide, but yourself. No authority but your own conscience,”* said Laurence, grasping at once the heart of it. 

“There are authorities to choose from to suit any action, if you like; I prefer to keep the choice a little closer.”* He did not say: _as you ran away to the sea; so did I run away to my own mind, Laurence, for I had to think for myself long before you learned to sail._

“How do you bear it? The choice, and all the consequences thereof, alone--”* 

Tharkay cut him off and did not say _finally you have begun to grasp what I have been telling you since Macao_ but instead, “Perhaps use has reconciled me; or perhaps I simply have less natural inclination to hold myself responsible for the sins of the world, rather than for my own.”* Now was not the time to chide Laurence for not having understood before: he had been doing his best. He still was. 

Laurence took in a long breath and covered his face with his hands. 

Tharkay was thirteen, and he had started to turn to his books instead of his schoolmates. 

Tharkay was nineteen and he had found his way back home; and his aji had embraced him, had loved him still. He relearned his mother tongue and began keeping his logs in Newari. The dreams came back. 

Tharkay was twenty-three, and he had begun to work out how he might -- not lie to his employers, precisely, but control the flow of information: crafting the narrative to suit his own ends. He would never again kill on another’s word. 

Laurence exhaled, dropped his hands from his face, and said, “Very well.”* 

These things were true: the angle of light in the window had shifted; and Tharkay’s backside had gone numb on the cold floor; and there was a little more strength in Laurence’s eyes. 

Tharkay stood and extended his hand to pull Laurence up just as he had over the wall in Istanbul; and Laurence returned his grasp with equal pressure, just like before; and as their gazes met a current of empathy sprang between them, and Tharkay allowed his expression to say: _today, Laurence, you have made me proud._

_***_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tharkay: uh wtf bro  
> Laurence: …  
> Tharkay: …  
> Laurence: *cries*  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay: wow  
> Tharkay: it must suck to have so many feelings
> 
> Laurence: wait so like  
> Laurence: if you’re not gonna follow orders then what ARE you gonna do  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay: literally anything else 
> 
> Laurence: ok so i’m not gonna do war crimes anymore  
> Tharkay: good job buddy 
> 
> #colonization of language is a whole fuckin thing 
> 
> *** 
> 
> LOLOLOL and we thought the last arc was a lot, huh -- 
> 
> So Tharkay and I are roughly the same age. This is important only because we’ve both put enough years in by now to have (mostly) developed the tools we need to deprogram ourselves from the self-hatred socialized into us from day 1. A curious thing happened on my way to turning thirty this year: I realized that I both love and like myself these days, and that the inside of my head is finally, finally a safe place for me. I looked back and it had been coming for a while -- I’d been gradually making my way here for years -- but it was only after I had already arrived to that safe place that I could look around and see it. 
> 
> As you might guess, this arc is about the experience of realizing that you are now the person you needed then. 
> 
> Of course, having had that realization, both Tharkay and I are both immediately like (*in denial, fleeing*) uuuugggghhhhhhh noooooo I guess that means I have a (*Rugrats movie voice*) ‘sponsibility to help other people who are in the same place I was, UGGGGHHHHH BUT THAT’S SO MUCH WORK, i don’t wannaaaaaaaaaa 
> 
> Not only is it work: as Tharkay puts it, it’s dangerous and exhausting work. Being a person in the world and liking yourself is already hard enough -- imagine, if you will, choosing to expend even more of your already-taxing emotional labor in a way that constantly brings up your own trauma (and also might get you killed) for the sake of someone else’s personal development. That’s what Tharkay is struggling with in this arc: he doesn’t wanna. Nobody really does, tbh. 
> 
> But some people, some relationships, are worth that dangerous and exhausting effort. Laurence literally gave up not just his life -- which we already know he only values inasmuch as it serves the Empire anyway -- but also his *Ember Island Players voice* HONOR rather than stand by and silently disagree when people in power tried some fucked up stuff. THAT’S why Tharkay chooses to help him -- not because of any personal favor Laurence did, but because Laurence literally saved the world and is now feeling self-hatred for it as a result of his programming (lol queer BIPOC experience anyone??? just me? aight that’s cool). 
> 
> In a world full of people who still believe the things that empires tell them about themselves, all we can do is try our best to be a Laurence. Put enough years of trying in, and soon enough you’ll realize you’re Tharkay. 
> 
> Thoughts? Feelings? Please share in comments! Especially responses to author’s notes/stuff that comes up for you while reading - this is the space for it. I’m sharing a lot of myself here: measure for measure, y’all. 
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***


	14. London

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick s/o to CMOTScribbler: you were the first reader to share your experience of this story in the comments; and because you were the first, you are not the last: they follow your example. Thank you. 
> 
> *** 
> 
> So when I tell y'all that I sat down to write a very different chapter -- the playlist song was originally another chill Rebecca Sugar joint with no drums -- and then put myself in the story -- thought about my lived experiences -- and came out of a fugue state with this -- 
> 
> ...the playlist changed. The song that I edited this to was In My Name by Jamila Woods. 
> 
> The author’s note at the end of this chapter is dedicated to my very dear friend and former roommate, who 12 years ago checked me when I mispronounced one of her names -- and my lil’ baby self was like -- *record scratch in the key of Laurence in Mercia* “You can DO THAT?” 
> 
> The two Secretaries are like, actual history canon, but there’s no dialogue from the books in here.

#  **London ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay pulls some strings**

*******

The Right Honourable Charles Cecil Cope Jenkinson, Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, was shuffling papers; and his brother -- the Right Honourable Robert Jenkinson, Second Earl of Liverpool and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Home Secretary -- was pouring himself a drink; and they had kept Tharkay standing in front of the desk for ten minutes, now. 

Finally one of the brothers looked up. “Ah, Tenzing, old boy!” he said jovially. “Our man on the Silk Road.” 

Tharkay did not say:  _ remove my name from your mouth or I shall do it for you, colonizer. _

He took a breath, thought of polishing his knife, said instead, “Reporting for orders, sir,” -- and flew away. 

The colonizers were talking; the sun was shining; and Tenzing Tharkay never did anything which did not advance his own interest, for no one but him ever would. 

A few weeks ago he had breathed enough space into himself to accept this truth: he was going with Laurence and Temeraire. He did not protest upon finding the choice already made in his heart, only trilled to himself in Durzagh and began to assemble a dossier on -- 

“--certain irregularities between the ships in and out of Canton and the amount of smuggled goods appearing in our colonies in Terra Australis, with -- you may not have spotted this, but it’s all there in your report, old chap -- no way of accounting for the excess Chinese goods flooding our Sydney markets,” said one brother. 

And to think -- he had been worried that he had made the clues too obvious. 

“The Company is losing fifty thousand per annum, and more to come if we do not nip this in the bud,” said the other brother, another direct quote from Tharkay’s report. 

“And as you have adequate tracking skills and some little knowledge already of the situation, Tenzing--” 

Tharkay heard the scrape of steel on stone, saw tempered ripples glinting at the edge of his vision. He clenched his fist behind his back and tried to think of rich brown fields under an open sky. 

“ -- had better leave on the next transport --” 

“Do you know,” said one brother to the other, “We’ve finally sentenced the traitor and his dragon -- should we have him -- ?”

“That’s quite a bit of responsibility, isn’t it,” said the other brother to his brother. 

“Yes, but better that than waste another operative on it when we have a perfectly serviceable one already posted there -- two birds, you know,” said his brother to the other. 

“Quite right, quite right...which ship--?” said the other brother, shuffling his brother’s papers. “Ah, yes -- the _Allegiance,_ with Captain -- I have it here -- Captain Riley.”

“Riley,” mused one brother. “Don’t we know his father?”

“Yes,” said the other brother, “In fact we’ve lately entered into business with him -- good man, good man.” 

“Tenzing,” said one brother or the other, and Tharkay smelled woodsmoke and jasmine and salt air, and whetted his blade -- “You will take passage to Terra Australis with Captain Riley of the  _ Allegiance,  _ and while you’re there you may keep an eye on the traitor and his dragon in addition to completing the covert investigation of this smuggling business.” 

“We expect regular reports of any suspicious behavior -- sedition, conspiracy and so forth,” said the other brother. “I know it’s a bit much, old boy, but we have every confidence in you, you know -- can you handle all that?”

“I expect I must, sir,” said Tharkay, expressionless.

“Excellent! Excellent,” said one brother. 

“Do this for us, Tenzing,” said the other brother, “and we’ll see whether we can’t do something about that case of yours, eh?” 

Tharkay had long stopped being offended by the extent to which he could hide his own agenda behind their belief in his gullibility. He had chosen laughter: as long as they thought they controlled him, he could do as he pleased. 

He bowed slightly and did not say:  _ eat shit, and die.  _

He said instead, “Thank you, sir.”

*** 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Colonizers: ah yes Tenzing old boy old chap   
> Tharkay: *snaps pencil*
> 
> Tharkay: see  
> Tharkay: the problem isn’t that you’re stupid   
> Tharkay: it’s that you think I’m stupid too 
> 
> *** 
> 
> The subtitle for this chapter may as well be NAMES ARE A WHOLE THING Y’ALL 
> 
> I have one of *those* names -- vaguely ethnic-coded, too many vowels, “unpronounceable,” etc. I can tell a lot about a person based on our very first interaction -- because how people react to and speak my name at our introduction is, let me tell you, a VERY good indicator for future relations. 
> 
> There is a long tradition of colonizers using names as weapons against BIPOC people.* Calling BIPOC people the wrong name -- intentionally denying them the names that tie them to their histories, their culture -- imposing colonial names on them instead -- and then using those names as a way to disrespect / demean them: you call your equals by their preferred nomenclature; you call The Help by their given (inflicted) names, as if they were children. 
> 
> Kindergarten was my first year at the very white, very upper-class private school I attended growing up. The entire school community called the teachers by their title and last name: Ms./Mr. S--------, Dr. Y---------, etc (we also referred to them as ‘faculty’ because college prep schools are fucking pretentious, lol). The janitorial staff, and the cafeteria workers, and the parking guards, though? Everybody, even the students, the children, called them by their FIRST NAMES, yes, names that were embroidered right onto their uniforms. 
> 
> (Everybody, that is, except the Black kids: our parents had us address them by *Mr./Ms.* FirstName -- Mx. not being a thing yet, it was the 90s.) 
> 
> Can you guess what the racial (and by proxy, class) breakdown of that first name-calling vs. respectful address split was? Can you guess which institution built the culture that led us to perpetuate that practice without question? (seriously: EVEN IN 2020, THEY’RE STILL DOING IT) 
> 
> Spoiler alert: *Jean-Ralphio voice* it’s slaveryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy 
> 
> It’s another example of how insidious the language of empires is -- all of these conventions baked into our society are rooted so deeply in some very fucked up power/control dynamics that we don’t even notice it. 
> 
> Names are important: we should put respect on them.** I encourage you to think about the ways that your language has been programmed by the culture you grew up in. (Because omg, mine super has, like I’m actually going back right now and re-editing the first two arcs and removing all of the ableist language that slid past me the first time around). 
> 
> When you interrogate your habits and language, think about where your source code comes from: who wrote it, and who put it there. Did you write it yourself? Did you annotate it for later, like Laurence? Does it come from a variety of sources, like Tharkay’s? 
> 
> Reprogramming ourselves is really fucking hard - how do you want to reprogram our shared language? What kind of changes to how we name things do you want to see? As always, let me know in the comments - this is the space for it. 
> 
> With gratitude,   
> nb*** 
> 
> *and also and especially TGNC folx but that’s not what this author’s note is about, sooooo   
> **I beg you, if this applies to you: do NOT let your children call BIPOC adults by their first names without preceding it with some form of respectful address. It’s a microaggression. Don’t ask the BIPOC people in your life if it’s ok for your kids call them by their first names that because I promise that you they will say yes even if the answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT, for the exact same reason that Tharkay didn’t tell those colonizing fuckers to eat shit and die: safety.


	15. The Allegiance (teaser)

  
  


#  **The Allegiance ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay rocks the cradle**

*******

He had wondered how it might be between them, after Mercia, but he needn’t have worried. Tharkay invited Laurence almost nightly to his cabin to have dinner, or a bit of brandy, or a game of cards -- any excuse to sit together in silence for a time while Tharkay cleaned his knife or worked at his logs. For a while, things were as they ever had been; better even -- there were no pretenses between them, not anymore, and Laurence even began to know Tharkay’s humor well enough to occasionally be in on the joke when he raised an eyebrow. And -- never one to stand on his pride unduly -- Laurence had asked Tharkay to call him Will a few days into their voyage, which Tharkay took as a positive sign. 

Still, as the weeks went by, Tharkay could see that Laurence’s state was growing rather worse than better, and even that was to be expected: Tharkay knew from experience that crossing this particular desert was not a linear course. He did not worry overmuch as Laurence withdrew further and further into himself -- but then one afternoon, after Laurence had left the dragon deck for his squalid quarters, Temeraire looked to Tharkay and Granby with anxiety in his eyes and a question that fair broke Tharkay’s heart.

Tharkay and Granby glanced sidelong at one another and found that they were in agreement: Laurence might sulk all he liked, but they would not permit him to push Temeraire into blaming himself for Laurence’s poor behavior.

“I’ll speak to him,” Tharkay said.

*** 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, readers - 
> 
> nb*** here. I’m posting this teaser for the Allegiance chapter in hopes that it will incentivize you to do what I’m about to ask you to do -- 
> 
> I’ve updated the Bristol chapter, both with some slight edits to language and a longer deconstruction in the author’s note. I wanted to make really, really clear what I’m trying to show/say/do here, and thanks to sitting with some reader comments I’ve been able to clarify internally what it is I’m saying and why. Shoutout to everybody who commented on the chapter: thank you for sharing your experience of it. It makes my writing better. 
> 
> Here’s the thing: the Jane Roland bit is something that I really need you all to understand before we hop into a hanging cot with Tharkay and Laurence. 
> 
> So please, I would love it if you re-read starting from Samarkand and when you do, please take some time to sit with the updated author’s note in the Bristol chapter. We’re going to be talking about intersectional trauma in intimate and sexual contexts from here on out, and I just… I need you, readers, to please believe me when I tell you my story. Please trust that I’m telling you the truth. Please don’t tell me that I have the wrong interpretation of my lived experience, not when I’m about to trust you with what’s coming next. 
> 
> If nothing else: if you don’t believe me, please be quiet. 
> 
> If you’re re-reading from Samarkand, meet me back here in the comments when you’re done - I’ll be around to process. 
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***


	16. The Allegiance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to leave the teaser and accompanying author’s note up because the experience sharing this story has been so fucking recursive, i can’t even tell you, and i feel like the story of the story is part of the story, you know? #historiography #it’s literally our own archive omg *brain exploding* 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who re-read and shared their experience <3 And now, dear friends, now we finally get a s e x y c h a p t e r ! ! ! 
> 
> My reference for the below was An Illustrated Guide to Admiral Nelson’s Navy, by Nicholas Blake and Richard Lawrence (2005) because I’m that guy, yes, the one who goes to JSTOR for fic research and is physically incapable of not citing a source; and I needed some visuals for context -- so if you Google ^^that + "hanging cot" and pull up the Google Books result you'll get the vibe -- the illustrations are from like actual contemporaneous sources! so cool! 
> 
> The editing song for this one was Here Comes A Thought feat. Estelle written by, you guessed it, the irrepressible Rebecca Sugar. It’s worth taking the ten minutes to YouTube the Steven Universe episode that has this song in it -- it’s called “Mindful Education” and stands really well on its own even for audiences unfamiliar with the show. 
> 
> ALL OF THIS DIALOGUE AND ACTION IS 10,000.00% CANON
> 
> *edit* updated Author's Note below
> 
> ***

#  **The Allegiance ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay rocks a cradle**

*******

He had wondered how it might be between them, after Mercia, but he needn’t have worried. Laurence came almost nightly to his cabin to have dinner, or a bit of brandy, or a game of cards -- any excuse to sit together in silence for a time while Tharkay cleaned his knife or worked at his logs. For a while, things were as they ever had been -- better, even: there were no pretenses between them, not anymore, and Laurence even began to know Tharkay’s humor well enough to occasionally be in on the joke when he raised an eyebrow. And -- never one to stand on his pride unduly -- Laurence had asked Tharkay to call him Will a few days into their voyage, which he had taken as a positive sign. 

Still, as the weeks went by, Tharkay could see that Laurence’s state was growing rather worse than better, and even that was to be expected: Tharkay knew from experience that crossing this particular desert was not a linear course. He did not worry overmuch as Laurence withdrew further and further into himself -- but then one afternoon, after Laurence had left the dragon deck for his squalid quarters, Temeraire looked to Tharkay and Granby with anxiety in his eyes and a question that fair broke Tharkay’s heart.

Tharkay and Granby looked sidelong at one another and found that they were in agreement: Laurence might sulk all he liked, but they would not permit him to push Temeraire into blaming himself for Laurence’s poor behavior.

“I’ll speak to him,” said Tharkay. 

  
  


*** 

  
  


The air was hot and close in his cabin, enough that they had both stripped down to shirtsleeves and bare feet for their usual round of cards. Laurence looked...frayed, fractured around the edges; Tharkay would have to be still more delicate, this time. 

He laid out his hand. “Do you know,” he said pleasantly, as if lancing a wound, “Temeraire asked me the other day whether I thought your present descent into despair might be his fault.” 

Laurence was immediately on his feet. His rage filled the cabin; it boiled off him in waves as he paced, trying and failing to master himself before speaking. “You -- cannot begin to know--” 

\-- and Tharkay gutted him. “No, please, I pray you,” he said politely. “Tell me what it is like to be cast out wholly alone by a country, government, and brethren who nevertheless feel entitled to call upon you should you be _serviceable_ to them without a care to your person, conscience, or honor, as though you were a tool to be used.” 

The chord had been struck: Laurence swayed where he stood. It was like watching silk crumple -- all of the wind fled his sails, and he fell with a thump to the sea-chest, staring at Tharkay as if seeing him for the first time. Tharkay stared back, implacable. 

“You… you told me this before, in -- in Mercia,” said Laurence in a faint voice, “and in Bristol…” 

“Yes,” said Tharkay, and did not say: _at last._

“But...but you said it in Istanbul too, by the fountain, and -- and before that, in the desert... and even in Macao,” said Laurence with growing amazement, “You said it -- ‘I have known too many fools in command,’ you said…” 

“Yes,” said Tharkay, and did not say: _you should have listened better._ They both had been doing their best; they still were. 

“You are a -- a _lodestone,_ to truth,” said Laurence with something like awe. “I wonder that I should ever have heard you speak and failed to comprehend.” 

Tharkay shrugged. “Call it Cassandra’s curse.” 

They looked at each other for a moment, then two, and then Laurence had spilled from the sea-chest to the floor at Tharkay’s feet and was clutching at his hands: a supplicant. “Tharkay, you -- you have been more patient than I deserve -- I have behaved the most wretched -- the most awful, I wonder that you should have -- please, can you ever forgive --” 

Tharkay gripped Laurence’s hands with no little force and looked down at him without pity. He held Laurence there with his gaze: not blaming him for it; no, never that, but neither would he allow him to escape it. “Laurence,” he said in precisely cut crystal. “Do not burden me with your absolution on _that_ score, of all things.” 

Laurence jerked back; and Tharkay held on; and then -- Laurence took in a breath -- something like an eddy whirled between them in their shared gaze -- and after a moment Laurence lowered his eyes and exhaled, bowing his head over their hands. 

Tharkay breathed with the waves, once, twice, a third time. He dared not think about what he hoped to see behind Laurence’s eyes: discomfort, expansion, acceptance. _Please._

Laurence raised his head -- _yes_ \-- and there it was: resolve writ clear across his brow. “What must I do?” 

Oh, yes. _Yes._

Finally was Laurence asking the right question; _finally_ was he ready to receive the answer _._ Tharkay nodded once in approval -- and then leaned in close and said only, _“Live.”_

Laurence stared up at him, and his eyes -- 

Tharkay was fourteen, standing naked and freezing in the surf under a waning moon. Laughter echoed in his ears: they had his clothes. 

He was eighteen, and his grandmother -- his family -- his teachers, his friends -- they had all of them denied him, had cast him out. 

He was twenty-four, and he had found that which he had hoped would not exist: proof that Whitehall was paying someone to pay someone to support his cousin’s case. 

He was a man past thirty and he had been shattered inside; he had put himself back together piece by lonely fragmented piece, and now Will Laurence was kneeling at his feet in a puddle of lamplight looking up at him with wide eyes full of...oh, _oh,_ it was just the same, the hurt and incomprehension of a terrified child lost and abandoned, unloved and unwanted: Tharkay might have been looking at himself. 

A tide of feeling rose in his core, then, and he -- he chose to let it flow unchecked. He held Laurence’s hands; he shut his eyes and exhaled all trace of humor and irony, all of his shields; and not knowing what might be seen there, he opened his eyes and allowed Laurence to look. 

Laurence was silent, adrift on the rising swell. Tharkay breathed with the waves once -- twice -- a third time. Laurence was listening. 

Tharkay spoke. 

“It is _a_ _poisoned well._

“The whole thing is rotten, Will, right down to the root. You will never find redemption at their hands: you must live it out on your own terms. 

“The fault is not with you, do you hear me? The _fault_ _is not -- with -- you._ You exposed them, yes, _them_ in all of their hypocrisy and lies. They won’t put you to death for it because you’re too useful to them, but neither will they ever admit that they were in the wrong, so they will do their best to convince you that _you_ are the monster; they will try to make you believe terrible things about yourself; they will make you _hate_ yourself if you let them. 

“And then they will _use you,_ Laurence, as they already have. You say they see the dragons as beasts, as tools -- it is not just the dragons, Will; it’s you, too -- it’s _all_ of us, though some have the luxury of persuading themselves otherwise. They see _you_ only as a weapon, a tool, a thing to be used for their own ends, and they will use you against those you love most, against _Temeraire_ if they can. They will offer you a kind of redemption; they will tell you that you might regain your honor if you do their bidding -- but you have already rejected their species of honor, Laurence, you cannot go back to any piece of it. You must tear it from yourself root and stem, because what they will do with you, if you let them, will _destroy_ you.

“They were never going to punish you justly, only take advantage of your penchant for martyrdom. Do not let them use you, Laurence: extract what you require from them and give nothing of yourself. 

“Question everything, _everything,_ and know your own mind; accept no one’s judgment but your own; and follow your conscience even as you question that, too. 

“Britain is not her government; Britain is not the Empire; you can be loyal to one without the other, and _your_ loyalty to what is good and true has never wavered, Will, not in the slightest.” Tharkay laid one hand on Laurence’s hair: a benediction. _“Trust_ yourself. You have done well -- so very,” -- and his voice almost broke, but not quite -- “ _very_ well, to make it this far; you must not surrender now. You must act honorably according to your _own_ conscience; you must arrive at your _own_ principles and act consistently with them at all times. Consign yourself to no one’s course but your own -- and chart it for yourself. Find your guiding stars, Will, and allow your conscience to point you there.” 

The silence this time was not ringing, but soft. The ship rocked them; the waves steadied them; and the space between them was awash with that tide of feeling, now flowing freely through them both. Laurence’s voice, when he spoke, was thin, fragile, cracked. 

“You...you _see_ it,” he said. “You see _me,_ you understand what I did, and -- and why, why we did it… I had never thought…” 

Tharkay carded his fingers through Laurence’s hair and knew what was writ on his face: understanding and affection, yes, and no small amount of pride. “Not only did you do right in this, Will Laurence,” he said softly, “You are the only one who could have done it.” 

Tharkay watched it happen: Laurence’s head jerked back, just the slightest bit, absorbing the impact of it; and then his eyes had filled with tears, yes; and then he had bowed his head over their clasped hands, and his shoulders were heaving with great hiccoughing sobs. 

Tharkay finger-combed Laurence’s hair with one hand and held on to Laurence’s hands in his lap with the other while Laurence wept. He breathed with the waves; and as he did so he expanded himself to contain these truths: Laurence’s hair was soft and damp with sweat; the puddle of lamplight was swaying gently with the ship; and it felt... _good,_ it felt so inexplicably and unexpectedly good, to be here now, to be here for Laurence through this. It had felt _good_ to share those parts of himself, to show Laurence that he was seen and witnessed. It felt _good_ to be for Laurence now that which Tharkay had never had: someone who _knew_ him, someone who _saw_ him, someone who valued him not for what he had done or could do for them but for all the choices he had made to become the person he was -- for the person he was, just as he was. Someone who might stroke his hair in kinship and empathy, or hold fast to his hand when he cried. 

Laurence raised his head, and his face was streaked with tears -- yes, tears and no little amount of snot. “I...I can never again follow another’s command unquestioned, _”_ he said, sniffing and wiping his face with his sleeve, “And yet -- I cannot deny that I have betrayed my honor -- how can I trust my own conscience, my own judgment, when -- when I have already made so many mistakes? When I have already done--” his voice cracked and broke “--so many terrible things?” 

“Liberty is perfectly awful, it is true,” said Tharkay, still stroking his hair, “But it is infinitely preferable to following an Empire and a Government you now know to be corrupt, self-interested, and unfeeling; which swore through oath and contract to honor you and which have now betrayed and wounded you in the worst possible way. Release yourself of that burden: you will be lighter for it.”

Laurence did not speak, only sniffled and lay his head in Tharkay’s lap once more. The waves rocked them; the ship groaned hot and close around them; and Tharkay held on. 

“It is a lightness which sits heavy in the soul,” said Laurence finally, looking up at him without any attempt to hide the pain in his eyes. “It _hurts.”_

“Yes,” said Tharkay softly, gently. “Yes, I know. It _hurts,_ and --” his voice broke a little, a hairline fracture, “-- and all we can do is breathe through it, and _live._ You have been navigating since you were a boy, Will, and I have seen your maps: I have every confidence that you are up to the task.” And so saying, he leaned over and kissed Laurence lightly on the brow. 

Laurence gasped, and shuddered, and sighed; he fair drooped with exhaustion over Tharkay’s knees. Tharkay let him breathe there for a moment longer, and then guided him up from the floor to collapse into the other chair. Sliding his half-empty glass across the table to Laurence, he said, “One more round?” 

Laurence looked up with naked gratitude and tossed back the brandy; and then he -- he lifted the bottle, refilled both glasses with a generous measure, and slid Tharkay’s back. 

Tharkay took it, and half-remembering a toast Sara had taught him a lifetime ago said, “To life, for its own sake.” Laurence met his eye and raised his glass, returning the toast, and they drank. 

  
  
  


Laurence was soon fainting where he sat and willingly climbed into the hanging cot at Tharkay’s suggestion. When he was finally certain that Laurence was safely swinging asleep, Tharkay pulled out his logs, allowed his awareness to fill the cabin, and then -- _breathe in_ \-- untucked his feelings -- flung them out wide -- and expanded his ribs to take in all that had just occurred. _Breathe out._

All of those years spent alone, wandering lost inside his own head, trying to make sense of the world he’d inherited with the features he’d been born into -- he had said nothing to Laurence but truth, nothing more or less than exactly what he himself had needed to hear, back then, when he’d been struggling through it alone -- with nobody there to help him, nobody there to listen -- knowing that nobody wanted him, nobody _cared_ \-- thinking that the fault was with him. Thinking himself worthless, unlovable. 

It felt like the setting of a bone, this sudden resonance between them. _You see me,_ Laurence said, and in that moment Tharkay had realized that Laurence also saw _him_ ; had witnessed and now understood, in a way that no person ever had before, what exactly it meant that Tharkay had made himself into the person he was, all on his own -- the awe Laurence now held for him was born no longer of pity -- no, it was born of true _esteem._

The lamp was swaying with the ship; and Laurence’s foot was hanging over the edge of the cot; and Tharkay...Tharkay was perhaps no longer quite so lonely as he had been before. And once he had breathed through his denial and urge to flee; once he had stretched himself enough to take in the truth, he looked into his heart and found...grace, yes, grace and a tender sort of pride toward his -- his mind stuttered on the word -- friend. His friend, Will Laurence, who when confronted with his own failings had not turned to the expected violence, no; Laurence had thrice now turned inward, and changed himself.

Laurence’s reaction had been -- he could not name the feeling, Tharkay realized, which had arisen in him when Laurence -- in his lowest moments, in his moments of weakness and despair, when pushed to his extreme -- had not lashed out at Tharkay but _reached_ out to him, had asked for help, had sought his counsel -- and then _acted upon it._ Was this what it meant, to feel honored?

Tharkay looked down -- of course he’d sketched Laurence’s foot -- its delicate vulnerable arch -- the shadows playing across the ankle -- the clear strong lines of the tendons. 

Before he could tear the page out, the real foot twitched. Tharkay went very still, his heart pounding; and then Laurence’s foot fell into the cot with a thump, and there was a little rustling, and then -- an unmistakable moan. 

Tharkay exhaled, snorting a little: Laurence was dreaming, yes, and clearly it was a pleasant one. He was tempted to let it continue, for surely Laurence deserved a little relief tonight of all nights, but he also knew that Laurence would also be mortified to wake and find himself soiled. He knocked lightly on the side of the cot. 

Laurence stirred, and there was a moment of silence; and then his voice emerged: “I most sincerely --” 

Tharkay heard it: the jangling strains of guilt, of shame, of Laurence _hating himself_ \-- and oh, _oh --_ it was the outside of enough. 

With ease born of long experience Tharkay vaulted onto the hanging cot to hover over Laurence, knees and elbows braced, and hissed, “ _No!_ ” This could not be tolerated. “Do _not_ apologize for this. That pleasure is _yours_ , Will; do not let them take it from you.” Tharkay stared down at Laurence, incensed on his behalf. 

The ship was creaking; the cot was swinging; and the end of Tharkay’s braid slid from over his shoulder to land with a thump on Laurence’s chest. 

They were in Danzig, and Laurence was looking up at him from beneath spun silver in playful flirtation without an ounce of shame, on a moonlit wall by the sea. 

They were in Dresden and Tharkay was tucking away his feelings; for Laurence had sprung up and said _no, sit, I will do perfectly well here…_

They were Istanbul and Laurence was saying _Tharkay, this is no service you owe…_

They were here now, cradled by the constant sea, and Laurence was meeting his gaze with no attempt to hide his hurts -- but neither did he expect anything for them; and that was why Tharkay might offer. This was a solace he knew, and could provide -- the unflinching regard of a fellow; the grace of pleasure willingly bestowed; the simplicity of bodily joy. 

Tharkay made a decision then, and did not flee the growing resonance between them. He only looked upon Laurence, dear Laurence and his lovely eyes full of pain, and whispered, “Yes?” 

The look on his face might have been answer enough -- and then Laurence took in a breath, and his expression puckered -- his brow furrowed -- and he nodded. 

Tharkay leaned, and blew out the lamp.

Shifting back over the cot, he lowered himself -- slowly, slowly, oh so slowly -- down into it full alongside Laurence, who shifted first to counterbalance and then to intertwine their legs. He studied Laurence’s body language through touch more than sight, searching for any sign of either affirmation or reluctance, and then Laurence nodded once more and hid his face in Tharkay’s neck. 

Well, then. 

Tharkay took Laurence’s hand in his and eased it down through rivulets of sweat, over the hard planes of muscle on Laurence’s belly, beneath his drawers and down the curving line of his hip, and was surprised when Laurence kept their fingers laced as he took himself in hand, so that they gripped his member together between them, and began to stroke. 

Tharkay put his mouth to Laurence’s ear, just for the two of them: “There, that’s it, Will, that’s it. It’s all right, it’s all right to feel this, it’s all right to feel good.” Laurence gave a sort of choked-off grunt and grabbed for Tharkay’s other hand, clapping it over his own mouth. 

Tharkay kept it there and curled around Laurence in a grappling hold, keeping him still with no little strength as Laurence jerked and quivered. Laurence’s breath was coming in odd half-spurts and gasps; and Tharkay held him steady and breathed against his skin; his lips brushed Laurence’s temple as he spoke. 

“Oh, Will, breathe, you must breathe, breathe with me, like this, like the waves.” Tharkay inhaled slowly, and exhaled, breathing in time with their strokes; and did it again, and again, and said, “These things are here, Will, these things are true: you, and me, and the sea, and the ship; we are here, we are here with the waves, you are here,” and he led them again for a while with strong, even breaths; and when Laurence was breathing steadily, Tharkay continued to murmur to him. 

“These things are true, Will, these things are all true: you are here, you are yourself, and you deserve this. This is not anyone’s to take or give: this is yours.” More muffled whimpers against Tharkay’s hand as together they stroked Laurence in earnest, and then Laurence lifted his knee, and his hand fell away from their shared grasp to circle around his hip -- and Laurence did something which Tharkay could not see but which effects he could certainly discern: his eyelashes fluttered against Tharkay’s neck, and a groan issued from somewhere deep in Laurence’s chest; and Tharkay did not allow himself to consider the implications. 

Suddenly it was Tharkay keeping up the rhythm, Tharkay holding Laurence and touching him in his most vulnerable parts as Laurence rocked forward into Tharkay’s hand and backward onto his own, moving, Tharkay realized, in counterpoint to the rhythm of the ship itself. 

“Yes,” Tharkay breathed, “ _Yes,_ that’s it, Will. There is no shame to be had here; this is yours. Yours, Will. You are yourself, _yes,_ and this is yours.” 

Between the two of them, it was not long before Laurence jerked sharply and might have overturned the cot if not for Tharkay’s hold keeping him immobile and Tharkay’s hand covering his mouth, giving him something to whimper and strain against. Tharkay held him there, held him steady, until the tremors subsided. 

He slid his hand from Laurence’s mouth, then, and Laurence immediately grabbed for it, intertwining their fingers and pressing his face into Tharkay’s chest, breathing in muffled gasps. 

Tharkay pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his other hand as best he could before passing it to Laurence, who reached down to clean himself. 

“Are you well?” asked Tharkay, and Laurence nodded, curling back into Tharkay’s side -- clinging to his waist, head on his chest, still gripping his hand. Tharkay held him and breathed, great deep intentional breaths which Laurence must have felt, for he soon began to match them, and together they breathed with the waves. 

After a while Tharkay, finding himself dozing off with Laurence somehow still in his arms, tightened his hold briefly and said into the darkness, “If you apologize for this in the morning, I shall throw you overboard.” 

Laurence managed a snort of laughter, curling in a little closer. Tharkay adjusted for comfort, sliding his foot around Laurence’s calf almost as if he were Gherni, and settled in to allow the waves to rock him to sleep with Laurence’s comforting weight over his heartbeat.

*** 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laurence: did you know?? that you’re literally right ???  
> Laurence: like, a l l o f t h e t i m e ? ?? ??? ???? ???  
> Tharkay: yup sure did  
>    
> Tharkay: yeah girl you’ve kinda been a shithead lately and you didn’t listen to me before because you were going through it, and also implicit & structural bias, it’s fine  
> Laurence, crying: omg i’m the worst, comfort meeeeeeeeeeee  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay: you’ll deal 
> 
> Laurence: wow this lightness of being sure is unbearable  
> Tharkay: i have a book you should borrow  
>   
> Tharkay: don’t ever be ashamed that you’re no longer a stormtrooper / just had a sex dream  
> Tharkay: as a matter of fact  
> Tharkay: let me introduce you to a little thing i like to call  
> Tharkay: masturbating while i restrain you and whisper guided meditation and affirmations directly into your brain  
> Tharkay: just in case you had any doubts 
> 
> #every time I reread Laurence’s groveling overapology i feel actual revulsion in my spirit  
> #fyi Laurence was dreaming about Tharkay telling him to live 
> 
> ***  
> Ok so i realized that i actually do kinda need to write up a deconstruction of that scene between Tharkay and Laurence, because we need to process it together. I didn’t do it before because...wait...Tenzing Always Right Tharkay put it this way in Istanbul: 
> 
> “He had not spoken of this method of defense, this habit of his, to anyone before; those who understood it did so without explanation, and those who did not were often its cause.” 
> 
> Which is to say, if you’ve never been Tharkay in a scene like this, you may not understand precisely what’s happening for him internally -- kinda like Jane’s Bristol microaggression, there’s a LOT more to their interaction than just what’s happening on the surface. So let’s DIVE... 
> 
> Laurence is in a position of power within the Empire’s structure. As a result of his self-hatred, Laurence betrayed everything he held dear and willingly turned himself into a war criminal because he was “following orders.” The victims of Laurence’s actions have mostly been other people. Like yeah, he feels bad because he did some fucked up stuff, but the ACTUAL VICTIMS have been...the people he murdered.
> 
> Here’s the deal - if you’re on the other side of that axis of oppression, your very first victim is your own self. 
> 
> You believed the lies that the Empire told you about yourself, and as a result you BETRAYED yourself, you HURT and DEGRADED yourself, you WILLINGLY USED TOOLS OF OPPRESSION TO COMMIT WAR CRIMES AGAINST YOUR OWN SELF. 
> 
> Quite literally: why do you think self-harm and suicidal ideation and yes, suicide rates, are so high among LGBTQIA+ people, especially BIPOC ones? 
> 
> How do you apologize to yourself for that? How do you forgive yourself for those things? 
> 
> You just gotta fucking cross the desert, is the answer. Like...all by yourself. There’s no one else who can. And it fucking SUCKS. It is the actual worst. The actual, actual worst. Like, I can’t even tell you. You just have to like… idk man, figure it out? just fucking... LIVE? and it HURTS. 
> 
> So. 
> 
> Laurence has just realized that he has been inflicting these wounds on Tharkay for the ENTIRETY OF THEIR ACQUAINTAINCE. 
> 
> I mean...wouldn’t you want to fall at someone’s feet and beg forgiveness? 
> 
> But Tharkay doesn’t have the option of asking someone else for forgiveness. He had to forgive himself, and so does Laurence. 
> 
> Because here’s the secret: FUCKING NO, I CAN’T FORGIVE YOU FOR THOSE WOUNDS YOU INFLICTED ON ME. THE ONLY WAY TO DO PENANCE FOR IT IS TO CROSS THE DESERT, THE SAME WAY THAT I DID. 
> 
> But here’s the even secreter secret: most of the time, for safety’s sake, we’ll just be like “omg it’s ok” when people have that realization and then do that stupid “omg i’m sooooo sorry i microagressed at you” because like, whatever, you don’t fucking understand, it’s fine. It is SO VERY, VERY RARE for us to decide a person is worth risking our safety to make them do some internal self-reflection. 
> 
> But Laurence has twice now shown that he’ll turn inward. And so even though his first impulse is to turn outward and make Tharkay do the forgiving, Tharkay feels safe pushing it right back on him, because now he can trust that Laurence will turn internally for the apology and forgiveness, will try to figure out how to cross the desert himself rather than just asking to copy Tharkay’s maps. He trusts that Laurence will do the work. Laurence is worth this. 
> 
> So yeah, I feel revulsion at that groveling overapology, and that’s because it reminds me of all of the times I’ve tried to burden other people with my self-hatred. And I feel really fucking proud of both Laurence and Tharkay, because they are doing the work together. 
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***


	17. The Equator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song I had on repeat for editing this chapter was Sunshine On My Shoulders by John Denver because I'm just a country doctor, Jim. 
> 
> The Captain F---- referenced below is canon from Crucible of Gold -- his actual name appears in the book, but I didn't want to out him here, lol. Go reread Granby's coming-out scene and try to tell me that he and Laurence weren't *involved.* 
> 
> And now, dear friends, I give you...

#  **The Equator ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay goes aloft**

*******

  
  


There was a particular kind of man who, having never thought of himself as someone who might engage in carnal relations with a fellow, would accede under cover of darkness with all the enthusiasm of a veteran sailor of the windward passage -- and then, when confronted with his choices come morning, would react with violence. 

Tharkay knew that Laurence was not that man -- had in fact never would have lowered himself into the cot had he thought it remotely likely -- but still he could never be _certain_ until it was too late, and the bitter cynic in him could not help planting seeds of doubt; for as always, his safety hung in the balance. 

When Laurence woke Tharkay was already staring at the weathered planks above them. As their eyes met and Laurence’s mouth opened, Tharkay looked at his face and found that he already knew what Laurence was going to say. He raised an eyebrow: _I shall throw you overboard._

Laurence’s mouth closed. 

Yes, it was a relief to be _certain._

When they emerged onto the dragon deck, Laurence went immediately to Temeraire with more than a trace of spring in his step. Granby raised his eyebrows at Tharkay, who searched himself and could find no other response but to trill at him in Durzagh. Granby snorted and said, “Whatever works, I suppose.” 

  
  


*** 

  
  


For the next few weeks, Laurence did not come to dine in Tharkay’s quarters, and Tharkay did not invite him. 

It was as if by mutual agreement: Tharkay needed space, yes; and Laurence needed to see to Temeraire; and they both needed time to breathe into themselves, to expand to contain this new truth between them.

It was not...uncomfortable, precisely, but it was of a shape that Tharkay had not encountered before. At first the usual reaction had arisen from his whirlpool of bitter memories: _damn fool, never let the Englishman go first, you know this -- now he will expect you to service him._

...and yet even as he had the thought he knew it to be untrue; Laurence had not taken but _given_ himself over into Tharkay’s hands in all of his vulnerabilities and hurts, _trusting_ him in a way that Tharkay had never experienced. Laurence had not demanded; he had not even _asked_ \-- and deeming Laurence worthy of it, Tharkay had freely chosen to offer grace. 

The current between them was at low tide for the nonce, leaving a bit of shore, some little stretch of land where they might catch their breath for a while. They sat between Temeraire’s forearms while Laurence read the _Principia_ and Tharkay sketched the rigging or cleaned his gear or braided his hair, daydreaming in Newari. It was -- nice, to have quiet time together where they might each sit with their own thoughts, not intruding, no -- but still _there,_ still present, still witnessing. And when Tharkay’s whirlpool of bitterness rose and sent him thoughts about Laurence that were not true, he had only to look up to see Laurence reading or dozing or already looking back at him with that considering gaze -- and the whirlpool would recede. 

They still took their morning flights, engaging mostly with Temeraire and steering away from dangerous waters. They played cards on the dragon deck in the company of Granby and the others. Tharkay taught Roland and Demane new knife tricks; he taught Sipho new songs. He began tutoring both boys in English script, having spied what Demane had worked so hard to conceal; approaching him under the guise of asking his permission to teach Sipho and inviting him to oversee their lessons. 

And then one morning, Tharkay could see that Temeraire was -- anxious, perhaps, or more eager than usual to take to the air for their flight, and they gained altitude rather sharply when they took off. 

“Very well, Temeraire,” said Laurence when they were some little ways away. “Ask your questions.” 

“But what _is_ a bedfellow,” Temeraire burst out immediately, “and why cannot we speak of it aboard the ship?” 

Tharkay looked down at the ship in question: it was a tiny speck in a vast expanse of blue-grey sea. He considered making a swim for it. 

“It is considered impolite to discuss it publicly,” said Laurence, “but in the services and elsewhere, there are those who turn to their comrades for such bodily comforts as they may provide one another; this happens for a variety of reasons: convenience or desire or mutual recognition of the necessity of relief -- there is rarely shame between men who have faced battle together, and sailors on the same ship may come to an understanding of terms which are satisfactory for both parties -- Tharkay, is it not so on the Silk Road as well?”

“I am not unfamiliar with the practices to which you refer,” said Tharkay tonelessly, staring at the horizon. 

“So a bedfellow is like a wife, but at sea?” asked Temeraire. 

“For many the relations between bedfellows are distinct and wholly separate from those between a husband and wife,” said Laurence, “and the one does not diminish the other -- for example, Captain F----,* whom I -- well --” he clearly was not _quite_ able to finish that sentence, and sailed around that particular reef. “That is to say, I have personally known men who were quite capable of maintaining relations of both kinds, often across long stretches of time and distance. I also have known many a fine officer who chose to remain at sea indefinitely with his companion rather than return to shore; similarly have I known officers who have chosen to marry, and given up their bedfellows.” 

Tharkay could not quite credit that Laurence had so readily engaged in this conversation, nor that he had such clearly articulated responses to Temeraire’s curiosity at the ready; this was plainly the result of Laurence’s long silences and considering looks these last days. He must have -- oh yes, he had _certainly_ planned this, had likely even seeded Temeraire’s curiosity intentionally -- oh, sneaky, _sneaky_ Laurence. 

“But if they want to stay with their bedfellows, why must they do it at sea?” said Temeraire. “Why do they not go home to England and marry the bedfellows?”

“While a man and woman may openly pledge their troth,” said Laurence, “it is a charge of sodomy and a hanging offense for two men to promise the same, though there be no less love between them -- and indeed sometimes a great deal more, for it is a steadfast bond indeed that might withstand the extent of the opprobrium which our countrymen and society can muster, even unto the excoriation and hanging which might occur should they be widely discovered.

“I do not say it is right,” Laurence continued, “but these relationships, which are tolerated in the relative freedom of the services, under the exigencies of war and within the camaraderie of fellows who have a shared understanding of motive, cannot be openly practiced in Britain, where the strictures of polite society more tightly bind our actions.”

“Well, all right then,” said Temeraire, “But if all of that happens in the services, surely we know some aviators who…” 

“Temeraire,” said Laurence, just a touch sharper than usual, “Mind your post, not your fellows: what our comrades do in the privacy of their bedrolls or berths is not ours to comment upon. Even were I aware of any who might engage in such practices among our ranks, I should never disclose it.” 

Temeraire looked to Tharkay; Tharkay shrugged, and did not say: _the degree to which you close your eyes to that which you should not see is nearly as delusional as it is admirable, Will._

“So I should _not_ ask about these things?” said Temeraire, drooping a bit. 

“Oh, my dear, you may always discuss anything which comes into your head with Tharkay or me; I simply beg that you be discreet,” said Laurence. “And should you witness any, shall we say, _inappropriate_ pairings, such as a commander and subordinate, I pray you inform one of us at once.” Tharkay did not miss that Laurence had placed Tharkay’s judgment equally with his own in Temeraire’s eyes.

“Of course I shall, Laurence, but why?” Temeraire asked. 

“It is wholly immoral, an abuse of the most wretched kind, for one in such a position of power to make an overture which he knows cannot be refused for fear of retaliation. I myself engaged in my share of -- indiscretions -- in my time as a young officer; however, once I made post it would have been an abhorrent breach of trust to coerce any man under my command in such a way. You will recall,” he said with a slight grimace, “That indeed Jane -- that is to say, Admiral Roland -- refused my erstwhile proposal for similar reasons.” 

“Oh, is that why she laughed when you asked her?” said Temeraire guilelessly. “I did not properly understand before.” 

Tharkay very tactfully did not allow his own amusement to show; he could well imagine how that proposal might have gone. “There are too many in power the world over who would exert their influence to extort favors from those who would not willingly give them,” he said instead. 

“Just so,” said Laurence. “Temeraire, I make you this promise: I have never, nor ever shall I, engage in such a liaison with any person whom I did not consider to be my equal or greater in esteem, character, rank, or any other measure which might signify in the eyes of man or dragon.”

And suddenly, having breathed through the urge to flee which he now recognized as nerves, Tharkay was astonished -- dazed, dazzled by Laurence’s display of sensibility and tact; he had approached the conversation with a delicacy which preserved them both their dignity and yet still made matters clear between them; and to have included Temeraire was a more persuasive display of respect than any assurances Laurence could ever have made. 

Tharkay looked down, composing his expression which had somehow become a smile without his knowledge, and turned back to meet Laurence’s gaze -- yes, there it was, that current of understanding. 

“Well that is very honorable, I am sure,” said Temeraire, “and if you want to be bedfellows with Tharkay -- which I think sounds very nice,” he added to Tharkay earnestly; and suddenly Tharkay was looking anywhere but at Laurence, “for that would make you very nearly one of my crew -- I suppose I should keep it secret?” 

“I thank you, my dear, and yes,” said Laurence. “For while it may not be so very dire for me if such a relationship were to be made public, our Government yet wields the law with discrimination and self-interested intent, and any involvement with me must only increase the scrutiny and animosity heaped upon my associates; they will find any reason to punish those around me if they can.” 

Temeraire’s ruff flared a bit at that. “Let them try,” he said, and there was a growl in his voice. 

“I have no doubt you would protect anyone we hold dear,” said Laurence, “but better to avoid the necessity in the first place. We keep these things private not from shame, but because such moments are not for others’ consumption; in a restless sea, we snatch what comfort we can and guard it jealously.” Laurence caught Tharkay’s eye, a question in his own. 

“Imagine if you will, Temeraire,” said Tharkay, “if someone were to demand one of your jewels, something precious to you; only for them to pick it apart, and declare it inferior, and smash it to pieces.” Tharkay looked back at Laurence, and the current of understanding deepened. 

Temeraire bristled, his ruff flaring once more. “I see, yes, how that might be very upsetting; secrets are like treasure in that way, and if a bedfellow is one of those treasured secrets, I shan’t speak of it to anyone but you, Laurence, or you, Tharkay.”

“Temeraire,” said Tharkay, “I should be very honored if you would call me Tenzing.” And he looked sidelong at Laurence, at the open surprise in his expression, and said, “You too, Will,” and turned his face to the sun, breathing sparkling salt air and looking out over an endless horizon of blue sky and bluer sea. 

  
  


***

  
  


When Laurence stifled a yawn during their card game that night, Tharkay flicked a glance up to the cot above their heads. 

“I do not wish to impose…” said Laurence. 

Tharkay raised an eyebrow and for once did not bite his tongue: “I have no further patience for polite demurrals from you, Will Laurence.” 

Laurence went a little pink at that, ducked his head and meekly climbed into the cot -- but then he poked his head back over the edge and did not speak until Tharkay met his eyes. 

“Good night, Tenzing,” said Laurence softly, and oh -- _oh,_ Lord have mercy -- it was -- awful, excruciating -- had anyone ever said his name like that before? Perhaps his mother or his aji, though he could not remember.

Tharkay fled to his logs. “Sleep well,” he said, giving the cot a push to set it swinging. “I shall join you presently.”

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laurence: hey let’s dtr with my kid here to mediate  
> Tharkay: *splash* 
> 
> Temeraire: oooooh so like who’s fucking who  
> Laurence: you know, i heard an ancient proverb once  
> Laurence: how did it go?  
> Laurence: oh yeah  
> Laurence: mind your damn business 
> 
> No one:  
> No one, ever:  
> Literally not a single person:  
> Laurence:  
> Laurence: teehee  
> Laurence: ~*~* * * T e n z i n g* * * ~*~*  
> Tharkay: i regret everything. 
> 
> Tharkay’s newly updated safe people list:  
> Lawyers  
> Sara  
> Gherni  
> Laurence + Temeraire 
> 
> Laurence’s:  
> wait wtf i have to have a list????????  
> ok well definitely Tharkay then  
> am i supposed to put Temeraire on here?? 
> 
> #our dear sweet golden retriever puppy Laurence is going to dream about ***Tenzing*** ordering him to bed for the rest of his life 
> 
> *** 
> 
> Ok. So. 
> 
> You know how “bro jobs” are a thing? (If you don’t: it’s straight-identifying men who are like ‘yeah of course i do sex things with my male friends but we’re not gay or anything’ and queer people are like ‘i mean i guess…?’) 
> 
> Turns out BRO JOBS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A THING. 
> 
> Remember Byron’s Harrow poems Tharkay referenced in the Taklamakan? They were published in 1806 - the same year as the events of Black Powder War, and they were about Byron and his friends’ schoolboy romances WITH EACH OTHER. 
> 
> Like, if you’ve ever been a teen girl you know what i’m talking about: those friendships and groups of people where you’re all just super confused and trying to work out what it means to be intimate emotionally and physically and also sexually and you’re like ‘why do you like her better than me’ and ‘dramatic friend breakup’ and ‘we all cuddle and sleep in the bed together’ and ‘i tell things to you that i don’t tell other people’ and ‘i wanna kiss you, like, a lot’ and ‘i want to be around you ALL THE TIME’ and just, you don’t yet know how to untangle all of your feelings to figure out which people give you which ones? 
> 
> TURNS OUT BOYS HAVE THOSE FEELINGS TOO. AND IT USED TO BE SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE FOR BOYS & MEN TO EXPRESS THEM WITH EACH OTHER. AND PUBLISH POETRY ABOUT IT, EVEN. 
> 
> Byron’s Harrow album dropped in 1806 and everyone was like “yeah that sounds right, definitely reflects my experience” -- and by the time Byron died in 1824 everyone was like “GAYYYYYYYYYYYYY” and hey guess what that’s like the EXACT TIME PERIOD our story takes place, so we get to start exploring that transition!
> 
> So. What changed? 
> 
> *circus music*
> 
> It’s our old friend COLONIALISM! 
> 
> The relationship between sexual practice and categoric identity is a social construct based in colonialism (and by extension capitalism) just like race. How, you ask? 
> 
> Well, when Europe sent Intrepid Explorers out into the Untamed Wilds, they found all these BIPOC people living their best lives. And then… wait… hold on, I think the esteemed scholar Tenzing Baddest Bitch Ever Tharkay had something to say on this: 
> 
> “In order to maintain the fiction of their own supremacy, they must needs fabricate rationalizations for the inferiority of any thing foreign or unknown to them; indeed they were weaned on such fantasies and must therefore even believe them at times.” 
> 
> So here’s how it went --
> 
> Colonizers: give us your resources and sovereignty  
> Native peoples: uh no, why would we do that  
> Colonizers: because we’re better than you  
> Native peoples: wtf why  
> Colonizers: because you’re BLACK and GAY and HEATHEN and that’s BAD  
> Native peoples: uh what do those things even mean…?  
> Colonizers: well we gotta make ourselves feel better about the fact that we’re doing some really fucked up stuff so we’re just going to define “BAD” as any piece of who you are or anything you do and make up a label to slap on the behavior  
> Colonizers: *gunpoint* 
> 
> Meanwhile, back in Britain… 
> 
> General populace: *happily fucking whomever they want as long as they still fulfill their social duties*  
> General populace: (meaning like if your duty was to Remain a Virgin you could fuck all the Women you want no problem, just No Dicks)  
> General populace: (or if your duty was to Be a Gentleman nobody cared if you fucked your friends as long as you Married Well and Had Heirs)  
> Colonizers: *returning home from wherever having become powerful because capitalism and exploitation*  
> General populace: …  
> Colonizers: *cognitive dissonance*  
> General populace: hey so uh --  
> Colonizers: GAY 
> 
> For more detail on this, I recommend checking out alokvmenon on Instagram/Twitter. 
> 
> All I’m saying is that there’s absolutely no way William “I have a pleasing manner and seek out company rather than knitting by myself when I’m chilling on a ship” Laurence wasn’t out here fucking his friends at least a little. 
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***


	18. "New South Wales"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: intersectional trauma in intimate contexts. Just...do me a favor, and make sure all lies well before you dive into this one, especially my BIPOC + queer kin out there. 
> 
> The editing playlist song for this chapter was, funnily enough, You’ve Got a Friend in Me by Randy Newman from the Toy Story soundtrack. 
> 
> All dialogue marked with an asterisk* is lifted directly from canon.

#  **“New South Wales” ;**

**or,**

**Tharkay seeks unknown music**

*****  
  
**

Their closeness was not carnal: it was better. 

In camp they slept curled together like dragonets, tucked into the crook of Temeraire’s forearm or in bedrolls side by side. What might have lain awkwardly between them in Britain was now just one more truth they were no longer forced to ignore, no need to hide behind pretenses or deflections beneath an open sky: there was an attraction acknowledged and shared, but not fed, not stoked except by happenstance. 

Tharkay also got somewhat of an answer to a question he had carefully  _ not _ considered aboard the  _ Allegiance _ when he was stirred awake one night by Laurence at his back, thrusting in his sleep, grinding and panting…

...and it was wonderful, so wonderful, because he only had to jostle him a little with his elbow for Laurence to tense awake; and after a breath Tharkay received a mumbled “beg pardon,” as Laurence rolled over; and squirming into a comfortable position back-to-back, they fell asleep again. 

In truth, Tharkay was not sure about the prospect of another liaison between them. He had had good reason to take care of Laurence on the  _ Allegiance _ ; he had reconciled himself to the directionality of its pleasure; but if it were to happen again, and Laurence  _ still  _ expected him to… 

No, Tharkay did not know whether he could brook the discovery that Laurence was that kind of man, not now that he had already seen and accepted the rest of Laurence’s broken ugliness -- how could he not, when it spoke so to his own? -- and though he did not  _ truly  _ think it of Laurence, the trust between them was yet fragile; it could not take such a blow, not when it was so lately germinated. 

And so the attraction had lain dormant, the rest of the voyage on the  _ Allegiance; _ and in Sydney they had been quartered separately. Tharkay had already been relieved to escape the city for his own reasons: he had always breathed a little easier in the wilderness, and out here they might find comfort in each other, in the simple ease of shared sleep without shame. 

  
  


***

  
  


The first time Laurence brought him supper, Tharkay was sitting by their fire scratching away at his logs. He’d vaguely noticed Laurence’s presence close beside him, his solid step -- and then Laurence was sitting across the fire. 

It was the smell -- that distinctive gamy smell of kangaroo -- which caught his attention. Tharkay looked down to see a steaming bowl at his hip. He froze. 

He was -- eight? and they had offered him one of their cakes, and he had bitten into it to find a cockroach stuffed inside. 

Tharkay looked up to find that Laurence was already looking back at him, steady as always. He breathed, expanded, and picked up the bowl. “My thanks,” he said, and pulled out his eating knife. 

***

The first time Laurence reached for his hand, Tharkay jerked it away. 

He was five; he was holding his uncle’s hand, and his uncle was looking at him with love in his eyes. 

Laurence withdrew, and did not try again. 

That night, though -- 

“Do you ever dream about them?” Laurence whispered. They were curled on their sides facing one another, Tharkay having woken to find Laurence in the grip of a nightmare -- always the same one, these days: Mercia, and becoming the Empire’s creature.

“Yes,” said Tharkay, and he rolled onto his back: an invitation; and Laurence scooted in close to lay his head on Tharkay’s chest. Tharkay reached for Laurence’s hand and interlaced their fingers. 

And the next day, Tharkay breathed -- breathed and  _ stretched _ and -- 

He shoved Laurence at the shoulder, and Laurence staggered away as if gravely wounded, laughing. Pulse pounding at his temples, Tharkay grabbed for Laurence’s elbow to pull him back upright -- and slid his hand down to Laurence’s wrist. Laurence did not look at him, but Tharkay felt the ripple of understanding from him nonetheless. They wove their fingers together and did not let go, not for a long while. 

***

When Laurence offered to fix his hair, Tharkay was seven -- he was sitting at his grandmother’s feet; she was combing his hair and humming; she was looking at him with love in her eyes. By the time he breathed himself back to the present, Laurence had already withdrawn. 

A few days later Tharkay flung himself down in front of Laurence without ceremony, and shoving a comb into his hands he drawled, “Take care of this for me, will you?” and tossed his head so that the end of his bedraggled braid whipped up to catch Laurence in the face. 

Laurence combed his hair with the particular care with which Tharkay had seen him wipe grime from Temeraire’s scales, and that was all right. But when he was done braiding, he -- traced the curve of Tharkay’s ear -- _no_ \-- he placed the palm of his hand at the nape of Tharkay’s neck -- _no, no --_ and Tharkay sat very still, and did not look at Laurence, and tried not to _react --_ but his shoulders began to rise _\--_ if Laurence kept touching him like that he _would,_ he -- his heart was beating in his ears and wrists -- _get out_ \-- and then Laurence, dear Laurence, tacked with all of the grace of a veteran sailor and yanked the end of his braid hard enough to turn Tharkay’s head and divert the current. 

He exhaled. 

***

  
  


The first time Laurence held out his arm when they lay down together, Tharkay went very still, heart pounding, and did not look at his face; Laurence was already withdrawing when Tharkay’s breathing restarted. He raised himself on an elbow to meet Laurence’s eyes: steady as always, anchoring him to the present. 

_ Just like Gherni, _ he told himself, and breathed, and slowly -- oh so slowly -- moved in close and placed his head -- breathe,  _ breathe _ \-- upon Laurence’s chest, upon that --  _ particular _ spot, just beneath the collarbone. Laurence brought an arm up to draw him flush against his side; with his other hand he found Tharkay’s and interlaced their fingers. Tharkay’s heart was still pounding; his nerves were still coursing; his breath was still shaky.  _ Just like Gherni,  _ he told himself, and slid his foot around Laurence’s ankle. 

Laurence’s heartbeat was steady beneath him; Laurence’s grip on his hand was secure; and Laurence, dear Laurence, was breathing with unmistakable intent: even and deep. Tharkay breathed with him, yes, breathed and tried to relax into these truths, to feel these feelings: he was seen; he was valued; and he was safe here: with Laurence and Temeraire, beneath the whispering trees and the open sky. 

Laurence fell asleep long before he did, that night. 

  
  


*** 

Tharkay had grown used to being the subject of that considering gaze.

More often than not, he came to realize, Laurence was lost in his own thoughts and just happened to be looking in his direction much of the time. But there were also times that he would look up and see that Laurence was -- not staring, exactly, but...paying attention. 

He supposed it was no surprise, really -- Laurence had been paying attention since Istanbul, had always taken the time to think about his actions, to interpret his experiences, his motives. And Laurence  _ knew  _ him, now. Laurence had his name. 

So when Laurence sat beside him on the bench and stroked a thumb down Tharkay’s spine to rest at the small of his back, he knew it for the intentional offer it was. He looked up at Laurence’s steady gaze, the familiar tide of panic welling in his core. 

Before his pulse could accelerate, Laurence had pushed him off the bench, and did not touch him again. 

Yes, Laurence knew him. 

  
  


*** 

  
  


They woke at the same moment to eerie singing. Laurence looked to Temeraire; Tharkay, the song. He took their empty canteens and went to find it. 

Away from the camp he cast his awareness out, drifting on the winds: the patterns here were different. This place -- this landscape -- it was entirely new, entirely unfamiliar -- he had no frame of reference for the topography, the features. He did not even know what the terrain was  _ supposed _ to look like: how was he meant to detect signs of a path, a trail, of any human presence whatsoever? 

He was seven and they were pointing and laughing; he was crossing his legs with tears in his eyes, hating himself.

He was ten, and his backside hurt, it  _ hurt  _ from the birch rod. He stared down at his hand, hating himself. 

He was sixteen and he was getting up from his knees, hating himself. 

He was twenty-one, or twenty-five, or fifteen -- and he had rolled over to curl into a ball, hating himself. 

He was a man past thirty and he had worked hard,  _ so  _ hard, to arrive at a place where he might find joy in his body. Where he might stare up at a ceiling appreciating beautifully painted designs rather than hating himself. 

He swam with the night winds, up between the trees and the stars, and allowed himself to --  _ perceive, _ to find and observe the shape of the patterns around him, searching for some trace -- any sign -- 

They were in Istanbul; Laurence was jumping down from the wall; Laurence was offering his hand and his loyalty; Laurence was carrying him up the stairs. 

He was twenty-six and he had taken a wound; he was limping: he was watching them leave him behind. 

He was twelve and they had been caught, they had  _ all  _ been caught; but only he had been blamed, only he had been punished, and they had said nothing. 

They were on the  _ Allegiance,  _ and Laurence was kneeling at his feet looking up at him with growing awe and understanding. 

He was five or ten or twenty or thirty, and they had kept him standing. 

He was thirty or twenty or ten or five, and he was  _ serviceable.  _

They were in Dover, and Laurence’s pulse was beating at his neck in the firelight, and his uncle was saying  _ what use are you to me _ … no, no -- Laurence had said, he had said  _ I value your company for its own sake  _ \-- 

He was thirteen or twenty-seven or three, and they had not even _thought_ of him -- he was twenty-eight or six or nineteen or eleven and their eyes were sliding right past his face -- they were in Edinburgh and he was not quite eighteen and -- no, _no_ \-- Laurence was offering to speak to the Admiral and _\--_ no, _please --_ his grandmother was looking at him with love in her eyes and saying _of course you will stay in the house, we need only shift your things upstairs -- no --_ _NO --_

\-- he slapped his cheek once, twice: he was  _ here _ . He was here, he was swimming in the night winds, he was observing the patterns --  _ these things are here; these things are true --  _ he was --  _ the stars in their skies above me, the rock face on the ridge before me --  _ he was -- floating with the currents -- swimming in the wind, breathing --  _ there.  _

There, up the ridge, yes,  _ there: _ a place on the rock worn away...differently, somehow, as if touched by many hands passing by. He began to climb. 

Laurence had his  _ name.  _ Laurence was in a position to make him feel good, yes,  _ very  _ good, even -- and yet by the same token Laurence could make him hate himself. 

He had been a damn fool, to let the Englishman go first. 

Laurence would make him hate himself. 

_ No,  _ he thought, and breathed, and expanded, and allowed the thought to drift into the sky. He had reached the top of the ridge. He put his hand to the rock. 

Laurence  _ could  _ push him toward self-hatred, that much was true: it was by now certainly within his power. And though Tharkay did not truly think it likely, he would not know for certain until it was too late, and his -- his  _ wellbeing  _ hung in the balance. 

He had absolute faith in Laurence’s good intent and ability to learn from his mistakes; he had already shown the necessary will toward self-reflection and change. But that did not matter in this case: Tharkay could hold space for any gap in Laurence’s thinking except in this. If there were even the smallest crack in the foundation, if even a single drop of the poison had been allowed to seep into Laurence’s well in  _ this _ \-- no,  _ no:  _ it would destroy him. He would be shattered inside, alone again -- but worse than before, because he had  _ known  _ better this time, he had  _ known  _ not to trust an Englishman’s promise. 

He had given Laurence too many pieces of himself already. He had given Laurence his  _ name. _

Tharkay knew these things to be true: Laurence  _ saw  _ him; Laurence would never harm him; Laurence wanted to make him feel good. 

And he knew, with the absolute bone-deep certainty of a sinking stone, that if he let Laurence touch him, if he allowed the wave between them to rise, Laurence would say “I’ve never had a Chinaman before,” and then  _ take  _ from him, emptying his cup -- Laurence would leave him alone, naked and freezing in the surf, cruel laughter ringing in his ears -- hating himself. 

_ That is not true,  _ he chanted.  _ That is not true _ .  _ The stars are true; the trees are true; the earth beneath me is true and the winds around me are true, and those thoughts are -- NOT -- TRUE.  _ And he breathed, and expanded and breathed -- and breathed again, falling to his hands and knees, and breathed and gasped again and again until he found his head spinning and his vision clouding -- he could not get enough air, he could  _ not  _ \-- for he  _ knew  _ it was not true and he  _ still _ could not convince himself, could not find space inside himself to  _ believe  _ it. 

He clenched his eyes and teeth shut, and did not shriek. 

Instead he sat, wrapping his arms around his knees, and bit himself hard on the wrist. The pain cleared his mind; his breath evened a little. 

Every so often he wanted to scream, or stab something, or cry. It was not  _ fair  _ that he had to fight rising panic anytime Laurence approached him with something like gentleness; it was not  _ fair  _ that his safety hung in the balance of his every decision: safety, or the possibility of a kept promise? Safety or the feeling of fellowship? of being witnessed, of being seen? Safety or the possibility of pleasure given by someone who truly  _ knew _ him? Safety -- or a chance at intimacy, yes, intimacy and joy? 

_ These things are true,  _ he chanted to himself.  _ These things are here, these things are true: the wind around me and the earth beneath me; the whispering trees and the scent of water.  _

The scent of water. 

  
  
  
  
  


It was cooler down by the river, and its song lent a cadence to Tharkay’s thoughts, a kind of rhythm he might follow. Having drunk his fill, he lay back on the riverbank to stare at the sky. He knew that there were constellations there; he knew that he knew their names, but he could not find the patterns. 

These things were true: he was terrified; he was uncertain; he craved intimacy even as he fled it. 

This was no matter of  _ measure for measure,  _ no obligation for any sort of exchange. He knew that Laurence was offering in the same spirit in which he himself had offered: unflinching empathy; the grace of pleasure; the impulse to tend to another’s hurts in the face of one’s own -- perhaps even because of them.

And yet, and yet, and yet: he could not be certain of it, not until after it was already too late. No, he could never be certain, and his safety -- his wellbeing -- his very  _ self _ hung in the balance. 

But then, they always did. 

The river was singing; the winds were calling. Tharkay filled their canteens and made his way back to camp. 

Laurence was already back asleep, curled loosely around Tharkay’s bedroll. Tharkay knelt to tap him on the shoulder, opening a canteen and shaking it so that he woke to the music of water.

Laurence’s eyes opened and focused; and then he looked from Tharkay to the canteen and back with that now-familiar awe growing in his face. “Thank Heaven,”* he said, and coming up to an elbow he placed his hand over Tharkay’s, and -- and -- brought the canteen to his lips in their shared grasp, staring up at Tharkay from beneath his lashes as he drank. Tharkay’s gut tightened: the current of desire was steadily rising between them, an undertow which would soon drag them both to sea.

Tharkay retreated: he left Laurence the canteen and pulled his hand away. “I did not find our singers, but their tracks, I believe: there is a way over the ridge to another river, and its banks are not impassable. I have found only the fewest signs of passage, but the trail is not unused. I think it may answer your search--and perhaps mine, also.”*

“The--smugglers?”* said Laurence, sailing easily as always with the change in the wind.

So he had put it together. Was Laurence was suspicious of him? Did he resent Tharkay’s secrecy? He could not ask, but he could give Laurence the opportunity to answer all the same. “I imagine you find I have been very close; although perhaps not so close as I might have prided myself upon.”*

“You may congratulate yourself as much as you like -- my intelligence is borrowed: Temeraire worked out the whole, not myself, and that only by guessing,”* and Tharkay was in truth a little relieved, that he should not have been so obvious as to reveal himself to Will Mind-your-post-not-your-fellows Laurence. 

...and then Laurence’s voice changed, and his eyes seemed to sharpen, and he touched Tharkay’s hand. “But I cannot see I have the least right to demand candor from you on the subject of your private affairs. I am sufficiently in your debt that I hope you know I would be glad of an opportunity to make some return; and you need not make me explanations.”* 

Tharkay did not jerk his hand away. They could not speak freely here, but he heard -- or thought he heard -- all of the shades of meaning behind the words, and responded in like kind, his voice low. “You are kind to make me such an offer; I can well imagine how little you would like in practice to lend yourself so blindly to another man’s course.”* 

“Very true, but despite that, I will not withdraw,” said Laurence, and again looked at Tharkay with particular intent; the current between them rose yet higher, grew yet stronger; and Laurence continued, “and if you prefer to keep your silence, I beg you to believe I will not press you.”* And in truth Tharkay  _ did _ know -- Laurence had never pressed, never asked -- he had only ever offered, and never more than once, and made space for Tharkay to come to him if he chose… 

He spoke of making return -- Laurence did not expect him to -- or was this a gap in Laurence’s thinking, would Laurence just  _ take  _ from him without -- was he only hearing what he  _ wanted  _ to have heard? He could only venture forward, carefully, carefully, maintaining his escape, not speaking of it outright -- 

“I do not propose to entertain myself unnecessarily,” Tharkay said, his pulse beating fast at his neck, “though I will ask you to come aside with me: I have been silent all this while shipboard only because I am not content with the genteel fiction of privacy when separated by only a plank of wood from a hundred idle ears, and I am no more so here in an open forest, surrounded by men who may only pretend to sleep.”* 

And he took Laurence by the hand, and Laurence followed him; and they went far enough into the forest of susurring trees and dappled moonlight to be safely alone together -- and Tharkay responded to neither the undertow nor the panic, though both were drumming at his neck and wrists. Instead, while he breathed through the urge to flee, he explained to Laurence his employers’ purpose in Terra Australis, and how the possibility of a new Chinese port had been uncovered -- and all the while Laurence just looked, and looked, and looked at him like -- like  _ that.  _

“It was you, wasn’t it,” said Laurence, after Tharkay had explained the whole of it. “You were the one who put all this together, who -- who made the pieces make sense.” The note of amazement was back in his voice, and something swept through Tharkay’s gut. 

He raised an eyebrow and managed to drawl, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, dear fellow.” 

Laurence was -- still looking at him like  _ that,  _ and Tharkay did not cede ground but stood rooted, his back braced against one of the whispering eucalypts, as Laurence advanced. “No,” Laurence said. “You are the only one who could have found this: the pattern, and how it all fits--” and oh, that wave rolled through him again: it felt  _ good  _ to be  _ seen.  _

Tharkay had to look up at Laurence; he was that close. “You are very kind to say so,” he said softly into the darkness between them; he did not move, and Laurence-- 

Laurence was reaching for him with particular intent. “May I?” he murmured, his hands coming to hover above Tharkay’s hips. 

Denial, panic, the urge to flee: these were all welling up in him; they would always be there. And with his blood still roaring in his ears, Tharkay breathed, breathed and looked up at Laurence and found that when Laurence was looking at him like that, Tharkay had enough space inside himself to whisper: “Yes.” 

Laurence moved a little closer and rested one hand lightly on his hip; Tharkay froze, froze and looked up at him again, hoping and _terrified_ of hoping… and yes, oh yes, Laurence was looking at him like that, and Tharkay found that he could breathe. 

“Yes?” said Laurence, eyes steady. 

He found that he could even smile. “Yes.” 

Laurence slid his other hand to rest gently on the back of Tharkay’s neck -- _no --_ and then leaned in -- oh no, _no --_ and suddenly he _was_ panicking because he knew what would happen, he knew that Laurence was going to _kiss_ him and he would -- no, _please,_ no _\--_ he would _break apart --_ and then -- oh, oh -- _ohhhhhhhh --_ he was looking at a sky full of stars. 

For Laurence had wound Tharkay’s braid around his hand and  _ pulled,  _ strong and steady and  _ just _ enough to keep him from flying away. Laurence’s fist was hard and unyielding at the base of his skull -- the sensation approaching close enough to pain to diffuse his rising panic, to allow the wave to recede and leave him --  _ exposed. _

Laurence had him; Laurence had him by the hair, and he tilted Tharkay’s face up, looking,  _ seeing _ \-- Tharkay’s mouth trembled, fell open -- he drank silver moonlight -- he was caught, splayed before Laurence in all of his hurts and broken pieces, all of his own shame, all of the hate turned inward; the plaintive bitterness in his heart exposed and raw -- and Laurence was  _ there,  _ was still  _ looking  _ at him like that, as a pilgrim before a relic -- he could not hide, could not flee, could only  _ feel  _ \-- he looked up into eyes framed by spun silver and could not say  _ please, I need…  _

“Tenzing,” Laurence said, and a shudder ran through him -- and then Laurence leaned in still closer, pressing him back against the tree, their bodies flush, and spoke into his hair -- “Tenzing,” Laurence said in a voice like the trees, his breath playing warm and soft across Tharkay’s skin, “It’s all right, Tenzing, it’s all right to feel this, it’s all right to feel good,” and he -- he bit Tharkay’s ear  _ just _ hard enough. 

Tharkay’s knees buckled. 

His knees buckled, yes, but it was all right, because Laurence caught him -- Laurence still had him by the hair, was sliding a knee between his legs and hitching him up astride his own thigh, bracing Tharkay back against the whispering tree. Laurence’s mouth was on his neck, hot and rough, and his hand was sliding between Tharkay’s shirt and his skin, slipping buttons off as he went. Tharkay clung to Laurence’s shoulders; it was all he could do, because he was -- he couldn’t -- it felt _good._ It felt so good, and he was caught in it, caught in that feeling of pleasure, awash in its waves and anchored by Laurence’s fist, Laurence’s hand in his hair which _held_ him in it, held him there and made him drink silver moonlight. 

_ Yes.  _

“Tenzing,” Laurence said, when his mouth was not otherwise occupied. “Tenzing, Tenzing. You deserve this, Tenzing, you deserve to feel good.” He was shaking; he was gasping; Laurence was touching him, and yes, oh  _ yes: _ it felt  _ good.  _

He made a decision then -- and brought a hand down between them to unlace his trousers. When he looked up, Laurence had already put his fingers in his own mouth, lips soft, and was watching Tharkay steadily. He could not meet Laurence’s eyes for long, he could not take the clear reverence in his gaze; the current was growing too strong for him to contain. Tharkay’s head fell back; his eyes closed; and a very small moan escaped his lips. 

Laurence’s response was immediate; Tharkay felt his answering groan rumble through them both, and then Laurence’s arm was wrapping around him, hand splayed across his spine, thumb trailing down to the small of his back, and then Laurence was holding his hips and grinding still closer, and then -- then Laurence’s hand was on him, and _oh,_ it felt good, it felt so _good_ that before he quite knew what he was doing Tharkay had brought his legs up to wrap around Laurence’s waist. 

Laurence gave a small cry and immediately put his mouth to Tharkay’s neck, stroking him in earnest. Tharkay flew up but did not fly away; for anytime his mind began to slip sideways Laurence would tighten the hold on his braid, would bite down  _ just  _ hard enough, would touch him in a new way, a new way that felt  _ good,  _ yes, felt good and anchored him to his body, kept his awareness contained to the present moment, to the two of them, just the two of them, here in the whispering trees beneath the Southern Cross. 

“Tenzing,” Laurence repeated between marks left on his skin. “Tenzing.” 

Tharkay could feel Laurence’s impudence pressing against him, but Laurence didn’t seem to have much concern for his own pleasure. It was so typical, this entirely foreseeable and yet somehow unanticipated consequence of Laurence’s particular good character, that Tharkay found himself carding his fingers fondly through Laurence’s hair; and Laurence, dear Laurence, looked up at him without guile, one dark nipple caught between his teeth. 

Well, then. 

Tharkay pressed a hand against the soft hardness in Laurence’s trousers and stroked, just a single touch, but Laurence’s moan was all the answer he needed, and soon they were working together to unlace -- and then they were shifting, finding the right angle, the right friction -- and Tharkay took Laurence’s hand and wrapped it around them both. 

Laurence groaned and bit down; and shivers radiated through Tharkay from the point on his chest, little pulses of pleasure which had him stiffening and arching his back -- and then he had braced his arms against the tree above his head and was rolling his hips. 

_ “Tenzing,” _ said Laurence. 

They rocked together, and oh,  _ yes _ \-- it was pleasure shared: pleasure multiplied. The hot slick slide of their flesh in Laurence’s hand was so good,  _ so  _ good… Tharkay was amazed by how quickly it happened; he tensed and cried out, just once, and then he was flying, drowning, flooded with it -- anchored by the teeth on his skin and the hand at his scalp and the torrent of pleasure dragging at his root; and his crisis seemed to touch off Laurence’s so that they groaned and trembled and cascaded together for a long moment, and then were still. 

Tharkay floated for a time, drifting on the receding wave; and after a while he realized that dear Laurence, still holding him up, was breathing with intent: steady and deep and even. Tharkay matched his rhythm, shaking a little yet, and allowed Laurence’s breath to draw him back into himself. 

He brought his legs down, sliding from Laurence’s thigh; Laurence produced a handkerchief to wipe them both and then pressed in close once more, bringing him into an embrace. Tharkay clung to Laurence’s shirt -- rested his head on his chest -- and did not feel caged but grounded as they breathed together, breathed in the smell of the warm earth and the susurring trees and the silver moon. 

“Are you well?” asked Laurence after a while, once Tharkay’s trembling had subsided. 

“Oh, I do tolerably, thank you,” Tharkay drawled, looking up to meet Laurence’s eyes; they smiled at one another, and then Tharkay’s expression turned serious once more. “Are  _ you  _ well?” 

“Better than: I am honored,” said Laurence. Tharkay did not -- could not -- reply to that, could only crowd in closer and press his forehead to Laurence’s skin, eyes closed, and let himself be rocked by the answering wave of feeling.  _ Honored.  _

The trees were whispering; the moon was waxing; Laurence considered it an  _ honor  _ to bring him pleasure -- and it felt  _ drenchingly _ good to hear him say so. These were not discomfiting truths to stretch into, no, but they were new all the same. 

They breathed there -- once, twice -- a third time -- and then Laurence tightened his hold briefly, released the embrace, and then found Tharkay’s hand, weaving their fingers together. “Come, lead us back to camp; we have been away long enough.” 

  
  


***

  
  
  


When Tharkay woke, Laurence was already gone. 

Oh, yes -- Laurence knew him. 

For it had been good,  _ so _ good, so very  _ very _ good -- and he was still...tender, from it. Raw, oversensitive. If Laurence touched him right now, he might --  _ die,  _ probably. 

But he felt...good. 

  
  
  
  


Laurence was sitting a little ways up the ridge overlooking the camp. Tharkay picked his way toward him; and when he came near, Laurence handed him one of two still-steaming cups. 

Tharkay sat next to Laurence, not quite touching; and as they drank their coffee and watched the sun rise, they -- breathed. They breathed, yes, and together began to expand into the currents flowing around and through them, the shared truths which now bonded them: they were  _ safe _ with each other; they were  _ seen, _ each by the other; they each one  _ valued _ the other for the person they were, in the fullness of all of the mistakes and choices they had made to  _ become _ the person they were, here on the ridge beneath the open sky. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tharkay, to himself: ok  
> Tharkay’s brain: yes hello friend  
> Tharkay: remember how good it felt for us to be kind and share with Laurence and then do sexy things  
> Brain: yup that was fun  
> Tharkay: and Laurence reportedly also felt pretty good when we were kind and shared and did the sexy things  
> Brain: uh huh  
> Tharkay: and it seems like he wants to do it again, ya dig?  
> Brain: yyyeeeessss…..  
> Tharkay: so what if  
> Brain: NO  
> Tharkay: we do it again  
> Brain: ABSOLUTELY NOT  
> Tharkay: but this time *Laurence* did sexy things  
> Brain: FLEE  
> Tharkay: in order to make *us* feel good?  
> Brain: N O F L E E E E E e e e e e e e e e  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay: holy shit you absolute asshole  
> Tharkay’s asshole: UM EXCUSE YOU DON’T BLAME ME FOR THIS I WANNA FUCK LAURENCE TOO 
> 
> Laurence: i will literally do anything you want no questions asked  
> Tharkay: …  
> Laurence: *service kink intensifies*  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay: well  
> Tharkay: when you say it like that 
> 
> #i dare you to reread that water scene and try to tell me they didn’t immediately go fuck in the woods #i literally retrigger myself every time i read ‘i’ve never had a chinaman before’ #i’ve tried to be really honest in this story about what racial + intersectional trauma is like from the inside without retriggering people who carry it but like i need you all to feel exactly how fucking deeply these moments violate & wound & defile so here we are 
> 
> *** 
> 
> Y’all I really don’t have it in me to write like, full sentences and paragraphs about all of the stuff that went into this chapter, so here are some things in no particular order, please comment on any number of them if this chapter made you feel anything at all because i kinda need to feel seen on this one but also please be kind because I’m pretty raw about it sooo 
> 
> Nonromantic love, physical closeness, intimacy without romance -- what it looks like -- romantic love isn’t the like, GOAL or IDEAL, ugh that’s so boring -- what they have is FUCKING AMAZING and is exactly what each of them needs rn 
> 
> Have you ever been super fucking dehydrated and hated everything forever? and then you drink water and you’re like……… OH 
> 
> Masculinity and men being socialized to only touch each other in violence -- LET BOYS HOLD EACH OTHER GENTLY 
> 
> Clearly observed and respected nonverbal boundaries 
> 
> EMOTIONALLY INTIMATE LIFE-AFFIRMING NONROMANTIC SEX. EMOTIONALLY. INTIMATE. LIFE. AFFIRMING. NONROMANTIC. SEX. 
> 
> Making the active choice to do sex things with A Specific Person for like…… Actual Reasons 
> 
> Affirmative and enthusiastic consent always and forever, this particular space right here (meaning Ao3) is where we get to imagine what good sex can look and feel like and it’s not just about the orgasms folks, there’s all this other stuff too 
> 
> What it’s like to have to work through trauma and anxiety and panic to do something you really really want to do 
> 
> Have you ever had to CBT yourself into letting someone love you? 
> 
> See how hard Tharkay STILL has to work to get himself to a place where he can say yes, even when he really really wanted to? Even when it was Laurence - LAURENCE, who literally gets off on Tharkay being his full amazing self in all of his weirdnesses and complexities. 
> 
> THAT’S what intersectional trauma looks like in an intimate context -- I cannot adequately convey how very very deeply that kind of thing fucks you up. Like -- FUCKS. YOU. UP. 
> 
> Because you learn that you can’t trust ANY. KIND. OF. LOVE. because of your LIVED. EXPERIENCE. Your brain tells it to you, your body tells it to you, your memory tells it to you, because it is a thing that is TRUE, because it HAPPENED. The LOVE was REAL -- *AND* -- it was POISON and THAT IS WHAT YOU WERE TAUGHT ABOUT YOURSELF FROM THE PEOPLE WHO SHAPED YOU - that THAT is the only kind of love that exists, the only kind of love you will ever have or deserve.
> 
> And it’s so, so hard to make yourself believe that things could be different, this time or any time. And you never quite believe it until it happens, and sometimes not even then. 
> 
> And it’s so, so rewarding when you finally find space inside yourself to take that chance, and the person you’re with just...makes you feel good. Makes you feel good in ways you didn’t know you were hurting. Brings you ease, brings you rest, brings you joy. Not only sees and witnesses you, but takes care of you in the ways you don’t know how to ask to be taken care of, for no other reason than just because they want to, because of the person you are, because of who you are to each other: aa’AArrrcq. 
> 
> This note is dedicated to my current partner, who makes me feel very, very good. 
> 
> With gratitude,  
> nb***


	19. Sydney

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **edit: as of 31 August 2020 the reread is complete, you can go start Anchor of Stars nowww** 
> 
> Real quick before we jump into this one - 
> 
> This is the first longform narrative I've ever ACTUALLY FINISHED, but from what I understand the very next step is going back and rereading the whole thing start to finish like DID I REALLY DO THAT? 
> 
> So that’s what I’m about to do, and I invite all of you to join me. Every couple days-ish for the next little while I’ll be posting slightly updated versions of at least up to Samarkand, and I'll add new Author’s Notes for the chapters that don’t currently have them. There’s a whole bunch of stuff that came up while writing/storytelling that honestly took me by surprise, and I’m excited to dig into it now that I have the whole picture! and the additional deconstruction of the early chapters will hopefully add even more to the reader’s experience! also I've already written a couple of them and lemme tell you it's about to be LIT so let’s read and discuss together because I’ll be around to process in the comments!! 
> 
> (Bonus: by the time we finish the reread I’ll likely/possibly/ideally have the first couple chapters of the sequel ready to post :D :D :D) 
> 
> The song I had on repeat while editing this one was Constellations by Jack Johnson, because my first ever live music date was at a Jack Johnson concert with my first ever sexual+romantic partner. 
> 
> all of this is canon don’t @ me

#  **Sydney** **;**

**or,** ****

**Our men embrace**

*******

  
  


The sun in its bright sky was wheeling; his newly cleaned gear was drying out on the terrace; and Tenzing Tharkay was sitting at the table in his room, staring at the bed and wondering whether he wanted to invite Laurence to spend the night with him in it. 

Their intimacy was… not of a kind that might be shared in any sort of civilized context, any semblance of polite society. It was different in camp, where they had open skies and space to breathe into new patterns; and though Sydney was lawless as a settlement might be, still it was a colony, and that familiar oppressive miasma crept through its streets. Yes, here the Empire’s constructed walls made their distinction clear: bedrolls were for fellows, and beds… beds were for lovers. Lovers, yes, and inverts, and sodomites -- and while for his own part Tharkay had long eschewed any of the Empire’s terms for his person or behavior, he did not know whether Laurence’s newly elastic self-conception would snap before stretching thus far. 

And yet, and yet, and yet: the possibility of one more night spent in safety, one more night spent in the arms of someone who  _ knew _ him, one more night with someone who truly  _ saw  _ him -- he wanted it. 

He got up, then, and went to the terrace to overlook the harbor: he could not keep looking at the bed. 

If Laurence spent the night, they would...they would not just sleep. No, they would not just sleep, and they would not know until after, whether or how it would change matters between them. And while nighttime was one thing, the morning would be quite another. 

They would have no time to settle into an understanding; no time to breathe together beneath an open sky. In the morning he would be gone, and -- and Laurence would not  _ be  _ there, to sit beside him, to look at him with steadfast eyes when his bitter whirlpool rose and threatened to drown him, to tug at the end of his braid and bring him back to himself. 

They’d had weeks,  _ months  _ aboard the  _ Allegiance  _ with Temeraire to help work out matters between them, and then months again in camp just to get  _ here, _ to this equilibrium. To destabilize it now would be… a desecration, an upending of the foundation they had built together. No, they could not alter the borders of their intimacy on the eve of their parting: he was not sure their friendship would survive it, and he held their bond too sacred to risk it for this. 

Sunlight was glinting on the water; his gear was mostly dry; he was leaving on the morrow: truths like sinking stones. Tharkay breathed, and let them settle. 

  
  
  
  


That Laurence did not even knock was a testament to his mood. Tharkay heard the door smack open, heard Laurence stride across the room to stand before the table and set down the bottles he had brought before beginning to undress. Dear Laurence, who -- Tharkay knew without looking -- had donned full coat and neckcloth to walk from the covert to his lodgings only to immediately take it all off upon arrival. 

Laurence’s breath was coming in petulant little huffs; the waves of frustration reached Tharkay from clear across the room. “If you cannot manage to provide yourself proper boots, I shall have to ask Temeraire to do it for you,” he said, not looking up from his gear. 

“If I promise to go to the cobbler tomorrow, will you help me take these blasted things off?” 

“Perhaps.” Why did he have  _ two _ canteens? 

“Very well, I promise,” said Laurence promptly. 

He pretended to think it over. 

“Tenzingggg,” said Laurence, and Tharkay was sure that nobody but him and Lady Allendale -- and perhaps a governess or two -- had ever heard that particular wheedling note in Laurence’s voice. 

He cracked a smile, then, and went to the bed to help Laurence with his boots; and he did not feel demeaned by it, not when Laurence was looking up at him with sincere gratitude.

And then Laurence stuck a foot in his face, yes, and wiggled his toes right under Tharkay’s nose, grinning like a child. 

He grabbed Laurence’s foot and yanked off the stocking. “Silk? Really?” he said, examining it. “You utter toff.” Rolling his eyes in fond exasperation, he tossed the stocking at Laurence’s face. 

“They were  _ clean,”  _ said Laurence. “You would not  _ believe _ the ghastly smell of the others -- if anything you should be thanking me -- ” and at that Tharkay pinned Laurence’s knee beneath his arm and tickled the bottom of his foot without mercy. 

Laurence yelled and kicked, and soon they were wrestling like boys -- rolling onto the bed in a ball of knees and elbows, pushing and slapping -- someone said “ow!” and someone said “bastard!” -- Laurence yanked his braid -- he bit the top of Laurence’s ear -- and abruptly that particular riptide rose between them, yes, rose and nearly washed them both away. 

Tharkay dropped Laurence’s ear from between his teeth to hover above him, propped on an elbow. Their eyes met and harmonized; the same chord of tension shared: desire set against better judgment.

Tharkay had made this decision already; he knew that he had done it for good reason; but if Laurence kept looking up at him like that he would be swept out to sea. He closed his eyes and breathed, just once. When he opened them, Laurence was looking up at him with a sort of wry humor about his mouth, and then he pinched Tharkay’s side. “I suppose we had better not.” 

Tharkay could not help it: he broke into a smile of relief. “Agreed,” he said, and patted Laurence on the cheek rather harder than necessary before collapsing beside him on the bed, and did not say:  _ had we but world enough and time.  _ He knew Laurence heard it anyway. 

This choice of theirs was born not of coyness, no, but of truths shared between them -- and yet still it was not easy to keep to the course they had charted together. Laurence nudged under his arm, rolling into Tharkay’s side to lay his head on his chest, and interlaced their fingers. Tharkay brought his other arm around Laurence to rub his back, tracing the ridges the Tswana had raised. This, just this, was more than enough. 

They lay there together for a little while, and then -- 

“Don’t go,” said Laurence into the silence. His voice -- Tharkay was sure that nobody, not even Lady Allendale, had ever heard  _ that  _ note in it before. 

“I shan’t,” Tharkay murmured to their hands: rich brown earth and sunlit cream braided together on the pillow. World enough, and time. “We’ll stay here tonight, just like this, and in the morning we’ll go down to the harbor and make our inquiries about becoming privateers.” 

He felt Laurence smile. “We’ll be the terror of the seas.” 

“We’ll take enough prizes to make an armada,” said Tharkay, “and Temeraire will govern us all.” 

“You’ll turn it into a floating Alexandria,” said Laurence. 

“And you’ll adopt every stray we chance across,” said Tharkay, and Laurence curled in closer, and he slid his foot around Laurence’s ankle, and they breathed together in the quiet. Eventually Tharkay found himself dozing off, and shaking himself awake said, “Come, you must tell me which of these canteens is yours, so that I may take it and leave you the other.” 

Laurence sat up laughing. “Pirate.” 

Tharkay smiled. “No, not pirate, dear fellow,” he drawled. “Privateer.” 

  
  


  
  


Their gear had been separated; their plates were clean; and he and Laurence were sitting on the terrace watching a red and yellow lizard -- with markings strikingly reminiscent of Iskierka’s -- hunt a spider twice her size, right across the terrace and up the wall before flipping over entirely to crawl under the eaves. 

They leaned forward at the same moment when it looked like the pair might scuttle out of sight, and then -- the spider struck -- the lizard dodged, counterattacked -- and as she vanquished her mighty foe they sprang from their chairs to celebrate -- and Laurence loudly broke wind. 

Tharkay looked sharply at him, and Laurence’s expression -- somewhere between shock at his own transgression, hope that Tharkay had somehow not noticed, and the guilt of a child caught filching sweets -- eyes wide, frozen like a vole beneath the eagle’s gaze -- 

Tharkay snorted, and Laurence’s mouth wavered, and then they were snickering -- laughing -- clinging to one another’s shoulders and roaring,  _ howling _ with it, wiping away tears -- Tharkay was bent over, his belly hurt -- and every time he thought they were done, their eyes met, and it started all over again. 

Finally they managed to look at each other without losing their breath, and -- “I would say something to you,” said Laurence seriously, “on matters as they stand between us.” 

Tharkay grinned at that: dear, dear Laurence. He fell into his chair with a languid gesture. “Very well, dear fellow, say what you will,” he drawled in cut crystal. 

“I must tell you,” said Laurence, taking the seat next to his, “that your judgment and esteem now form the better part of my conscience, and the grace you have extended me is perhaps the sole reason I do not -- do not hate myself entirely.” The last vestige of Tharkay’s ironic humor vanished. His pulse sped up, just a little. 

Laurence was still speaking: “It is only recently that I have begun to question the tenets on which I was bred and raised; and opened my mind to the Empire’s many grievous wrongs -- wrongs which, I am ashamed to say, I had previously chosen to ignore. And if Temeraire raised these questions in me, _you_ have unerringly pointed me toward answering them for myself. As Temeraire is my guiding star, you, Tenzing, you are my -- my _compass:_ you have oriented me to truth; you have afforded me latitude to free myself so that I may chart my own course, and I do not know how to express the -- the very great humility I feel; it is an honor and privilege to know you, and I will forever be in your -- ” 

“There can be no talk of debts, Will, of gratitude or otherwise, between us.” He could not allow this to continue; Laurence was flaying them both in the worst way, saying these things, speaking straight to Tharkay’s fiercely guarded heart. 

“This,” he gestured between them, “is reward enough: to see another soul freed from the shackles of Empire. I have told you before that the bitterest root of this lot is enduring it wholly alone. I do not dwell on that bitterness any more, true, but still any person deserving the barest hint of loyalty is one whom I would spare that loneliness if I could, and you have long earned full measure of mine. 

“...and,” he added softly, after a moment, “anyway, I cannot pretend there was no interest in it -- after all, now we are neither of us quite so alone as we were, are we.” 

He looked at Laurence, and Laurence looked at him, and there it was: the current of empathy, of safety, of  _ witnessing, _ flowing between and through them. “No,” said Laurence, “no, and we never shall be,” and then Laurence reached for his hand, and Tharkay slid his foot around Laurence’s ankle, and they sat together, fingers laced, sharing a pipe and a bottle on the terrace: watching the moon rise, and trading stories of the stars. 

  
  
  
  
  


When the sound of musket-fire rang out, Laurence barely flickered an eyelid, instead pouring them each another round. Tharkay smiled, and they raised their glasses to one another. 

More shooting, closer this time, and then the sounds of escalating violence had them both on their feet. Laurence downed the rest of his drink and swore with real feeling. 

“Why, William Laurence,” said Tharkay in mock surprise. “You have the mouth of a sailor.”

Laurence looked sidelong at Tharkay, through his lashes. “Why, Captain Tharkay,” he volleyed back. “I thought you knew -- I  _ am  _ a sailor.” 

It wasn’t so much the flirtation itself that did it, Tharkay thought, as the fact that Laurence had addressed him by his putative rank: all of the blood left his head in a rush, roaring in his ears as he looked from Laurence to the bed and began to reconsider his position, wondering just how much time they might eke out before -- more gunshots sounded, bringing him back to himself. 

Laurence sighed. “Temeraire will be worried.”

“And I should make for the docks,” said Tharkay, with no small amount of relief for having been spared temptation. He gripped Laurence’s forearm hard. “You will write me.” It was not a command but a statement of fact: he had seen how diligently Laurence kept at his correspondence. 

“You know I shall,” said Laurence, returning Tharkay’s clasp with his own solid strength, and drew him into a long embrace. 

Tharkay closed his eyes and breathed into it, wanting to remember this feeling… and then there was nothing more to say, nothing to anchor them there: it had come time to be parted. “Keep well, Will.” 

“And you,” said Laurence softly. “Tenzing.” 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tharkay: ok but do i wanna fuck Laurence in this bed tho  
> Tharkay: because like  
> Tharkay: on the one hand i would get to fuck Laurence in this bed  
> Tharkay: but on the other hand  
> Tharkay: i might lose my actual entire mind  
> Tharkay: buuuuuut on the other other hand i WOULD get to fuck Laurence in this bed tho  
> Tharkay … annnnnd possibly destroy the only authentic friendship ive ever had in the process.  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay: … BUT 
> 
> Tharkay: plus we would need like six weeks of just chilling with Temeraire to process it together after, wouldn’t we.  
> Tharkay: …  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay:  
> Tharkay: i’m so mad that i’m going to be an adult about this 
> 
> Laurence: *vulnerability and emotional honesty*  
> Tharkay: stop it 
> 
> ***
> 
> idk, i’m just crying, meet me in the comments 
> 
> <3,  
> nb***


End file.
